


Chasing Demons

by OneShotRevolt



Category: Tekken (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, set post TK7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:55:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 55,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22349116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneShotRevolt/pseuds/OneShotRevolt
Summary: Jin Kazama wakes up in his uncle's clinic, determined to finally rid himself of his devil gene. His plan for doing so however - ask the world's leading expert on the gene for help - Kazuya Mishima.
Comments: 53
Kudos: 91





	1. Molten

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sola_Ircadia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sola_Ircadia/gifts), [ThalieXVII](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThalieXVII/gifts).



> Dedicating this story to Sola_Ircadia and ThalieXVII, for their great stories and inspiration that fuelled me to write this one :)

As he opened his eyes, his nostrils filled with the stink of burning plastic. He wrinkled his nose and blinked in the flashing strip lighting. The bulb above him spat and fizzed. It was hanging at an angle off the ceiling, with half its wires trailing out.

He was sitting on white bed. Torn sheets were in disarray and strewn about. A side table had been knocked over, and the floor was littered with broken glass, needles, latex gloves, and an array of small, silver, operating instruments.

The laboratory about him was quiet. There were signs of only recently ended chaos – bulbs still swinging, a monitor at the end of the bed smoking with a shattered screen, a fire burning brightly in a cracked, see-through plastic box. He stared at the orange flames licking up the walls of their cage, thickening the plastic with a smoke-black screen and filling the air with an acrid stench.

He tilted his head. He could hear the sound of rapid breathing. His eyes hunted in the wreckage of the room. His gaze fixed on an overturned operating table. Sandy blond hair and a pair of quick blue eyes peered out from around the edge. He watched with some curiosity as a man clutching the body of a young woman flashed into his vision, and then darted out the door in a whirl of a red cape. He shook his head. They both seemed familiar. He touched a finger to his temple, trying to sort out the jumble of memories coming to him.

His attempts were interrupted by a new arrival. A man with an ageless quality to him, silvery hair and keen features, swept into the room in a labcoat. He somehow wore the coat like fine robe, despite the fact it was singed at the ends and soot was tracked up one side. He moved with elegance about the scene of destruction.

“Ah! Jin! Finally with us again, excellent!” He gave a thumbs up and a glowing smile.

Jin scowled at him.

“Uncle…” he said, more as a recollection than a greeting.

“And with a memory intact, this day just keeps getting better!” Jin looked past him, at the still-sputtering fire burning in the corner. His uncle, Lee Chaolan, turned to see what he saw. “Oh, don’t worry about that!” His uncle smiled brightly.

A small explosion burst from the heart of the fire. Flames shot up four feet into the air. A plume of purple smoke mushroomed and blackened the ceiling. The fire then subsided down to a slumbering smoulder. The sprinklers flipped on. Showers poured from above and a silver rain coated Jin’s vision. Jin lapsed into a scowl as water ran down his face and slowly soaked his hair and clothes. His uncle gave slightly pained grimace.

“Not without some hiccups as you can see,” Lee added.

Jin shivered in the cold water. Lee pulled a torn labcoat from a counter and flung it around Jin’s shoulders.

“Come along, my dear,” he said with enthusiasm, as if he wasn’t standing in a destroyed medical bay, drenched in water. Puddles pooled beneath their feet and live wires sparked and stuttered in their broken reflection.

Lee led Jin out into a corridor. It was nondescript and grey and instantly made Jin wary.

“Hush, hush,” his uncle said, somehow sensing his discomfort, “it’s alright. This is a private facility of mine, no one here means you any harm.”

“Not even him?” Jin was looking down the corridor. Standing menacingly in the clinical light was the man who’d first fled the lab. He had an erratic mass of sandy hair, gelled into spikes, and was fixing Jin with a sullen look. Jin could recognise him now as Lars, his other uncle. It was a confused and sprawling family, but all that mattered was that none of them had ever been there for him when he’d needed them. They were all tenuous fair-weather relatives, as far as he was concerned. They suddenly started popping up all over the place as soon as he had power and wealth. None of them had been there when he’d had nothing, when he’d been alone.

“Lars,” Lee called. His voice was pleasant, but just tipped with fine hint of danger.

Lars glared at Jin, then stamped into another room and vanished from view.

“He won’t bother you.” Lee gave another brilliant smile. “He’s just a little upset, is all.”

“There was a girl… earlier.” Jin frowned as he tried to recall. He pulled the labcoat about him and pushed wet hair out of his face. He curled his fingers inside the material to hide that he was starting to shiver.

“Alisa. The android you had programmed a while back. You recall her? Well, there might have been a little accident involving her in the lab just now.”

Jin gave his uncle a quizzical look.

“You shot her head off,” Lee clarified.

“I- what?”

“Don’t worry yourself over it, you were stressed – not yourself.”

“I shot her head off?!”

“Easily repairable. Lars is just being dramatic. I’ll have Alisa fixed back up in no time at all. Now, this way please, I can’t have you freezing to death, what kind of uncle would I be?”

Jin glowered at him, but allowed himself to be led into another laboratory. It was a mirror of the one he’d apparently torn apart. He looked around uncertainly. Lee pulled out a draw from a steel cabinet and set it down on a clean surface.

“Right, sit.” His uncle indicated to a hospital bed. “I took the liberty of purchasing some clothes for you. All in your melancholy, introspective shades of black and angst red.”

Jin’s head snapped up as something came hurling towards him. He caught a fluffy towel in his arms. He gave his uncle a furious look.

“Ah the Mishima scowl, how I haven’t missed it,” Lee said as he regarded him. He leant his chin on an elegant hand. “Now, lets see what else I can get you.”

As he moved about the room, Jin noticed a slight limp to his uncle’s gait. If he hadn’t been watching carefully, he might have missed it. There was also a fractional crease about his uncle’s eyes with each step he made too.

“Did I hurt you?” Jin broke the quiet. He got no response. His uncle continued his search, pretending he hadn’t heard him.

“Ah, here we are.” Lee offered a closed hand to him.

Jin pulled away. His uncle opened his palm. Within was a little packet of sweets.

“Very important to get sugar levels up after a fright.”

“I didn’t have a fright,” Jin scowled and hugged the towel to him. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know where I am, and my memory is… hazy.” He fixed his uncle with dark eyes, “I want answers.”

Lee rustled the sweets in front of his face. Then dropped them on top of the towel in Jin’s arms.

“You’ve been unconscious for some time.” Lee took off his labcoat to reveal a perfectly pressed suit beneath. He checked his bow tie in the reflection of a steel cupboard door and straightened his jacket. “In better news though, your grandfather is dead.”

Jin looked up.

“Heihachi is dead?”

“For good, hopefully, this time. It’s about time Kazuya got at least one thing right.”

Jin received this news with an empty ambivalence. His grandfather had raised him for four years: given him a place, a purpose, shared his home and his martial arts with him. Jin had latched onto him for the stability he had needed back then. He had thought they had something – a bond, an understanding – only to be stabbed in the back by his guardian. Metaphorically of course – he hadn’t been actually stabbed in the back – he’d been shot in the face. He wasn’t sure what injustice Lee had faced at Heihachi’s hand, but the old man seemed to have a reputation for being a bastard to his family. It didn’t come as a huge surprise to hear Lee talk so bitterly of his dead father. Jin watched his uncle curiously, wondering if it was appropriate to ask what Heihachi had done to wrong him. Jin knew very little about his uncle other than that he had grown up with Kazuya after being adopted into the Mishima family.

Just as he opened his mouth to ask, Lee gave him another charming smile that steamrollered all other potential conversation into silence.

“Are you going to use that towel, Kazama Jin, or are you just going to drip all over my lab equipment?”

Jin set down the packet of sweets and began to tousle himself dry.

“Here, let me.” Suddenly his uncle was beside him, drying his hair.

Jin flinched and shrugged him away, his heart beating fast.

“Calm down. It’s alright.” Lee’s tone went from amused, to gentle and reassuring. Jin could hear his pulse throbbing in ears, tolling out a warning at the proximity of another living being. “It’s alright, it’s alright.” The repetitive motion of the hands and the towel was light, feathery soft against his head, as though waiting for him to allow more contact. “It’s alright.” Something clenched inside Jin, choking up his throat. “It’s alright,” his uncle kept saying over and over, in a softer and softer voice like a mantra. Jin could feel things threatening to bubble up from inside. There was a war in his chest – one part fortress walls built with high defences, and another part all surrender, suffocating with a long need just to breathe, to relax, to allow himself to be cared for, to put the world on pause and to not have to look after himself for just five minutes.

The fortress walls harboured dark things that sprung before his eyes as evidence: Mishima Heihachi was towering above him. The night was cool. Heihachi was still in his hakama from their fight earlier. The patterns on them glimmered silver in the moonlight, only a little ruffled up by their tussle. All colours jumped into relief like crash lightening when the Tekken Force assault rifles lit up the night with their stuttering gun fire. His vision flickered with the onslaught of flashing lights. The sound had been so deafening. Jin had never heard a gun before then. He gazed stupidly at the handgun in his grandfather’s hand, as the barrel slowly lowered towards his head. The sound of it firing ricocheted through Jin’s dreams for years to come. He could still feel that moment of impact. The cold, solid entry of the bullet through his skull. The slow way that all the world folded in on itself and gradually collapsed into blackness. The dread and paralysis that seized him for the brief millisecond before he fell into nothingness.

“He’s gone.” A whisper by his ear. “He’s gone, he can’t hurt you.” Jin realised his arms were wrapped tight about his uncle’s waist. Lee was holding him gently, one hand still tousling his hair with light, calm, repetitive motions.

Jin unwrapped his arms and lowered a fold of the towel to peer up at his uncle through the soft, white, fluff. He was unable to articulate what was happening inside him just then, but Lee gave him a small smile – a real smile, not like the clever ones from before.

“How do I know?” Lee asked Jin’s question for him. Jin gave a slight fractional nod. “You remind me of-…” Lee cut himself off. Jin’s face darkened. “Someone I used to know,” Lee finished, just a little stiffly. They both knew he meant Kazuya. “Besides, Heihachi has a way of doing that to people. Getting in and making himself a permanent place to live in your head before he starts eating away your self-confidence. Have a sweet, they’ll make you feel better.”

Jin was caught off guard. His uncle had such an earnest expression on his face that it was somehow easy and unjudgemental to do as he asked. Jin reluctantly open the packet. Inside were sticky, sugar-flecked, hard-baked sweets. They did make him feel better, he reflected, as he sucked on one and let his uncle finish drying his hair.

“Can I see?”

“Hm?” Lee paused with the towel.

“Is there a picture? Of Gr-… of Heihachi? Dead, I mean.”

Lee put down the towel and squeezed onto the bed next to him. He pulled out his phone. He flicked through a gallery.

“Not much to see. I had a spy satellite rigged up, but the pictures aren’t fantastic.”

He passed the phone to Jin. The unmistakeable hulk of Heihachi, hewn down, and laid on rugged, black land filled the phone screen. A scar mark of a punch flared as a red star across his chest. The man was battered and bruised, his signature black gi all burned and ragged. His expression was vacant, faintly surprised, as if he couldn’t quite believe in his own mortality. Jin looked at the image expressionlessly.

“His chest…”

“His heart stopped beating,” Lee clarified.

It wasn’t much of a clarification. Had Kazuya really… just punched that undefeatable man so hard that he had a heartattack? Heihachi was a nearly six foot of tough muscle and thick limb, still in the prime of his health despite his advancing age. What kind of man could, with one punch, just end that? All those booming laughs, and keen sharp eyes deconstructing every kata move Jin ever made, those large hands helping him back up whenever they beat him to the dojo floor, all those smiles larger than sun, and canny wit that Jin could barely keep up with – stopped like the pendulum in a clock: a steady, reliable clock that just kept going, providing that background so essential that until its continual tick stopped, it wasn’t truly clear to Jin that he’d even known what silence was. He wondered if Lee heard that silence. He wondered if he relished in it, or felt that odd emptiness.

Jin interlocked his fingers together.

“I’m sorry I ruined your laboratory.”

“No need to apologise.” Lee gave him a warm smile.

“I’m sorry I hurt Alisa.”

“She’ll make a full recovery soon.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Silence.

Jin looked at his feet and put another sweet in his mouth. Lee put his phone away and folded up the damp towel and set it to one side. He sighed.

“Has it taken over you like this many times before?” Lee asked.

Jin kept looking at his feet. He didn’t need to ask what his uncle was referring to. He nodded slowly in response.

“It didn’t manifest properly for Kazuya until he was twenty-six.”

Jin’s hand tightened into a fist. He didn’t want to speak of Kazuya. At the same time, though, he realised Lee was one of the few other people on earth who knew of, and had been close to, the devil gene. Jin was quiet for a bit, before tentatively asking,

“Did he-… did he lose his memories when he transformed?”

“Hmm.” Lee crossed his legs, then reached over Jin into the sweet packet and popped one in his mouth. “Hard to say,” he said around his mouthful. He swallowed then continued. “It was a strange time. He was under a lot of pressure. He was getting paranoid. What he wanted, what he did, what he became, how much he had control, how much he forgot, how much he remembered – it was all a big mess.” Jin watched his uncle carefully. He was surprised to hear a hint of sorrow in his voice. Lee sighed again. It was a heavy sigh and Jin could hear the decades in between then and now in it. “Well, that’s all in the past now. He’s certainly very much master of all his actions now.”

Jin shifted in interest.

“He is? What, even when…?”

“Even when he has that devil form? Yes, I suppose so. He seems to be able to transform at will, so I assume he’s fully cogent whilst he takes it on. He speaks with the same aims and intentions when he’s a devil and when he isn’t,” Lee said bitterly. “That’s no longer a secret – by the way.” Lee set Jin with sharp eyes. They made Jin feel like he was back at school. “Heihachi caught Kazuya as a devil on footage and had it broadcast to the world. A desperate last effort on his part – he’s been trying to keep his son’s curse out of the public eye for decades. But yes, we have Kazuya in high definition, in all his malevolent glory, blasting laserbeams out of his forehead on the top of G-Corp tower.” Jin stared at him. Lee grimaced. “But, on a more positive note, plenty of material for me to work with. I’ve been rewatching the footage to learn what I can about his condition. It should give us the edge when he comes for you. Which he will, I’m afraid. As soon as he’s thinking straight after this victory over Father, he’ll start looking into Zaibatsu business. He’ll noticed a failed kidnapping attempt by Heihachi to remove your body from my humble Violet Systems.” Jin’s head snapped up at that. Lee fluttered a hand dismissively. “Yes, that happened too. Not a problem. Lost a whole building, but I have others.” He stood up and started pacing. “But onto more important matters, you’ll need to retake the Zaibatsu as quickly as possible. The last thing we want is for Kazuya to have all the resources of G-Corp _and_ the Zaibatsu.”

The pacing stopped. Jin looked up. His uncle was looking at him with raised eyebrows. Jin’s cheeks flushed.

“I was listening.”

“You were not.”

Jin’s cheeks went redder. He glanced away.

“I was thinking about what you said. That… he can transform at will…”

“Kazuya? Yes. What about it?”

“That he is still in control whilst in devil form…”

“Jin…”

Jin fixed his uncle with a desperate look.

“If I had that, then I never would have lost control. I wouldn’t have upset Lars, or harmed you and Alisa, or destroyed your lab.” Jin twisted his fingers. “I don’t even know what might happen in future: the things I might do when I turn into that monster.”

Lee laughed, but Jin wasn’t sure what kind of laugh it was. It didn’t really reveal very much, and certainly didn’t seem humorous.

“I told you – nothing was damaged that can’t be replaced – you’re getting worked up over nothing.”

Jin glowered and he saw his uncle’s face falter slightly, as if touched by some memory.

“I want to be in control. I don’t want to hurt the people around me. If I must use this power until I’ve defeated all trace of it elsewhere, then I have to able to control myself. I have to be able to sleep at night knowing that the blank spaces in my mind aren’t places where people have suffered because of my own weakness.”

“Jin…”

“Don’t say my name like that – like I’m being childish! I know what I want!”

Lee sighed and turned to him, he put a hand on his arm.

“It’s not childish. And I’d never belittle you for such noble desires. But think about what you’re saying.”

Jin’s brow flickered. He looked up at Lee.

“What-… what am I saying?”

“That you want to be in control. Exactly what Kazuya always said.”

“Wanting control isn’t the same as crusading for power and letting nothing stand in my way!” Lee raised one eyebrow at him. Jin turned away. In the last year or two, he’d taken some more drastic measures to try and see his own goals through to fruition. It had been a worthwhile aim, he kept telling himself, but that didn’t change the fact that Kazuya wasn’t the only one who could be accused of tyrannical leadership and destructive practices. Jin had waged wars, before it all started collapsing around him. “When I was doing all that stuff before with the Zaibatsu, it was for a good reason. I didn’t really want to destroy everything. I thought it was the right way to solve the problem…” Jin gave his uncle a look that was all defiance and just a little bit desperate. “I’m not like him.”

“No…, no, you’re not like him at all,” Lee reassured him, patting his arm and using that tone of voice that Jin was beginning to think was mostly for calming angry children and not for conveying truth. Jin tried to push his irritation at that away.

“Do you know how he did it? How was he able to gain control of the devil gene? How can he change at will, and use his own mind and speak with his own voice when transformed?”

Lee shook his head.

“I don’t know. He’s spent years researching his own genes. My expertise is in robotics not genetics or… demonology. But I believe it has compromised him somehow. It’s brought Kazuya’s personality closer to that of the devil he harbours. He’s barely recognisable as the man I once knew.”

“But it’s also brought the devil part closer to his human side. He can stop it from lashing out at just anyone it pleases.”

“Jin!” Jin shied away from the reprimand. “Jin,” Lee said again, this time with more gentleness. “You need to think less impulsively. You need to learn patience and planning. If you want to stop needless suffering, you can start by reflecting on the actions that you _do_ have control over. You’ve caused a huge amount of pain just as plain Kazama Jin, without much help needed from any devil.” Jin’s heart beat loud in his head and his throat dried. He swallowed and lowered his eyes. “War, death, political assassinations? This doesn’t sound like the kind of child Kazama Jun would have raised…”

Jin’s head snapped up, eyes lit with fury. He stood abruptly and wheeled on his uncle. Lee spread his hands in placation.

“Alright, alright. No talking about your mother,” Lee said before Jin could act on his anger. “But at least think over what I’ve said. Think about changing what is in your control, before you fantasise about the kind of power that will destroy you. Trust me. This is coming from someone who’s seen it all before.” Jin continued glaring at Lee. His uncle sighed. “Ah, dear nephew, you’re so predictable. Don’t throw a tantrum at me – show me how mature you are by engaging in a little self-reflection. And put those clothes on before you catch a cold, you’ve been in those wet things for far too long. When you’re done, there’s a door at the end of the corridor with an eye scanner. I’ve programmed it to let you out. Come on upstairs and I’ll show you a room I’ve prepared for you. We can have some dinner together.”

Lee Chaolan went from scathingly manipulative to domestic nagging so quickly that Jin wasn’t sure what expression he was even meant to pull in response.

Before he could work out if he was still angry or not, his uncle had left, letting the lab door swing closed behind him. Jin stood in the midst of the clinical, sterile room with his fading fury and an empty sweet wrapper in hand.


	2. Haze

The room he’d been given was beautiful and lavish, but still retained the traces of an institutional facade. No amount of it looking like a bedroom could change the fact that it was in the heart of an industrial complex. It had a quality somewhere between a hospital or what Jin imagined a mental ward might look like. Everything was too clean and too tidy, and all the lights had a slightly unnatural whiteness to them. His heart ached for the old, warping, wood walls of his family home in Yakushima, where thick, dark forests leaned in close and brought the smell of rain and deep moss with them.

Jin sat down on a king-size double bed, creasing the cotton sheets. He had been fed, but it hadn’t exactly been dinner together as he’d been promised. His uncle hadn’t eaten. He’d merely perched on the edge of a chair briefly, and even then, Jin got the impression he had pressing places to be. Lars hadn’t show up, though Lee told Jin not to think anything of it. The food had been excellent, but Jin wasn’t sure where it had come from. It just sort of materialised on a plate that his uncle set down before him, and Jin was very sure the man hadn’t cooked it himself.

Jin looked about him. This was a safe place, he kept trying to convince himself. The people here wanted to help him. _Don’t they always._ Secrets within secrets, and ambitions beyond those. That was the only thing he’d come to expect of anyone associated with the Mishima family. He looked down at his hands. _That curse is mine also._ He thought back on that destroyed lab. He closed his eyes tightly. Those eyes peering at him from around the fallen operating table – Lars’s eyes – wide, furious, afraid. Jin stirred where he sat. His frown deepened but he kept his eyes closed. Lars holding a body in his arms – a girl dressed in brilliant pinks and violets – the body bundled up to Lars’s chest, mangled and odd, the girl’s head cradled close to him, disconnected, sitting atop her stomach, eyes glazed and unseeing.

Jin stood abruptly. He looked at his hands in disgust. A large free-standing mirror was in his suite. He stood before it now and looked at the young man staring back at him. He traced the places where those hated black tattoos would show up, where the horns would protrude from, all the places where his body would distort with the mark of the curse he’d inherited. He wondered then not just who he had hurt, but also who he might hurt in future. He’d pushed many people from him for fear of what this devil inside him might do, but people just didn’t stay away. People kept finding him who had different brands of hope that somehow all featured him. People who loved him, in their own strange ways. People like Xiaoyu and Hwoarang and Lee, and maybe even Lars. Perhaps even Alisa, if her love counted… and if her programming was still intact after he’d severed her head from her body.

_That could have been any one of them._

It was an easier decision to make with that thought echoing through his head.

Jin pulled the hoodie his uncle had bought for him over a black shirt. He went over to the window. A light grey rain was falling. It was lit with a faint purple haze from all the glowing neon bouncing off the Violet Systems tower. He was two floors up at least, but there was an attractive looking drainpipe that didn’t look too far a stretch from his window. He slid open the window. A chill damp breath of air brushed his cheeks. He reached out and grasped the clammy drainpipe. It was wet and cold under his fingertips. He swung himself out the window, pausing to drag the window closed behind him. It wouldn’t fool his uncle for long, but hopefully it would buy him a little extra time to get to where he needed.

Jin slid down the drainpipe and hit the floor below with a thud. He brushed his hands dry on his clothes and looked about. The street was quiet and empty save for a few parked vehicles. He caught sight of a motorbike. He dug his hands into his hoodie pockets, looking for anything he might use. He found the plastic tag still attached to the new jacket. He pulled it off and approached the motorbike ignition. If he got to see Hwoarang again, he’d have to thank him for showing him this trick.

Ten minutes later he was roaring down the street on his stolen bike, engine exhaust flowering up behind him and choking the fog. Headlights swam before him as dim stars. He slalomed between them, jumping lights as he slipped through Tokyo’s traffic. He knew his uncle would know where he’d gone. He needed to be already in the front door before Lee knew he was missing.

G-Corp tower stood sleet grey against a monochrome sky. Jin leapt off the motorcycle and let it skid into the curb. He could already see security guards alerting to his presence as he strode up to the front door. He pushed open the doors and got into the reception lobby before two dozen firearms were pointing at him. Little red laser sight dots swarmed over his body. He put his hands on his head and slowly sunk to his knees.

“Take me to Mishima Kazuya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter. These chapters are all wildly different lengths, as it's one scene per chapter. This was originally envisioned as a short story, so bear with me. It turned into something larger because Jin is stubborn and I love Mishima drama.


	3. Amber

Some of the brazen confidence Jin had walked in with was fading from him. He was standing in an elevator crammed with G-Corp guards. The amber visors on their helmets formed a blank emotionless screen all about him. His forearms were bound together before him in a heavy chain that wrapped from his wrists to his elbows. It seemed his reputation preceded him.

He kept his shoulders pulled back and proud as he was escorted at gunpoint out of the elevator. A guard knocked on a door. For a moment he and the G-Corp guards were all silent and waiting together. Jin could feel a palpable weight in the air, like maybe those around him were as nervous as he was at the prospect of this encounter.

“Enter.”

Jin felt cold. He kept his face carefully schooled free of all emotion. He was led into a vast office, but he couldn’t focus on anything else in it save Mishima Kazuya. The man somehow managed to pull off the suit he was wearing despite the muscled fighter build beneath it. His face was slashed with a scar that Jin had never dared to ask about. His eyes were mismatched, one black, one red. They both fixed on Jin now.

Kazuya stood as Jin was marched in. He tucked his thumbs into his waistcoat and a smirk touched his face.

“Kazama Jin,” he greeted. There was amusement in his voice and a kind of relish to his words that filled Jin with dread. “So good of you to drop by and save me the trouble of finding you. Leave us.”

  
  
Kazuya indicated for the G-Corp guards to depart. There was a fraction of hesitance there as the guards looked between Jin and Kazuya, before Kazuya’s face hardened and they backed swiftly out the door. As the door closed with a soft thud, it sounded impossibly loud in the silence of the office. Jin suppressed a shudder. There was a weariness in his limbs and he was finding it a little hard to concentrate. He drew in a breath, though, and made sure he was holding himself so as to show no sign of weakness. He lifted his chin high and surveyed Kazuya through the fall of his fringe.

“You can control it,” he said.

A beat. Whatever Kazuya had been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. Kazuya raised an eyebrow. He leaned back on his desk and gestured with a hand for Jin to continue. Jin was disturbed by how at ease he looked. Surely the man didn’t think one chain was enough to stop him? Was he really not even a little wary of what Jin could do? That made Jin uneasy. Kazuya was dangerous, to be sure, but if anyone could take him, it was him. Jin had beaten him before. Heihachi was the only other person who could claim that, and he was dead. Why wasn’t Kazuya more perturbed? Perhaps it was a Mishima thing – Lee Chaolan was good at hiding his emotions too.

“I want to learn to control it like you do.”

Kazuya stood. Jin moved half an inch back. Kazuya walked over to a dark, red, cedar sideboard and removed a crystal stopper from a decanter.

“Drink?” He asked. Jin shook his head. The chains on his arms rattled as he did. “What, are you underage?”

“No…” Jin couldn’t help but sound a little sullen at the question. “I’m twenty-one.”

Kazuya poured himself a glass of amber whiskey and watched him over the rim.

“I remember…” he said casually, and something about the way he said it made Jin blush scarlet. His face sunk into a scowl and he glared at Kazuya. Kazuya gave him a slow smile, clearly enjoying his discomfort. “So… you’ve come here for my help.”

Jin continued glaring. Another wave of weariness rolled through him and he had to interrupt his own glare to blink eyes that had become heavy. He stifled a yawn that suddenly shuddered through him, moving his chained arms to cover his mouth. He tried to pull himself together. He needed to be alert. Kazuya was still watching him intently. Jin looked away so that he didn’t have to meet that oddly dissecting gaze.

“And…” Kazuya was walking back over to his desk. His path cut close to Jin, who backed up another two steps. Jin did not feel at all in control of this situation. “What makes you think I won’t just ignore your plea and take what is rightfully mine?”

Jin’s lip curled at the word plea and his anger flared. His words came out a barely control snarl.

“I am not someone you can take from so easily! Or have you forgotten!?”

Kazuya set down his glass with a clink on a coaster on his desk. He strode very deliberately towards Jin. This time Jin held his ground, maintaining fierce eye contact.

“I don’t think _I’m_ the one who’s forgotten about our meeting at Hon-Maru, Kazama Jin…” He stopped just in front of him. He had a patient look. Jin kept looking into those cold eyes. He could hear his own breath, just a little rapid as he tried to think. His eyes widened slightly in realisation. He looked down at the chain on his arms. He looked back up Kazuya, frightened now. “And now you remember…”

When Kazuya and Jin had first met, Heihachi had bound Jin with a chain that suppressed and drained his devil power until he lapsed into unconsciousness. That sapping finality was seeping through him again now, and Jin found himself struggling to stay on his feet. He pulled at the chains, but it was far too late to be calling on the power he needed to shatter them. He was worried now. Worried like he should have been all along, he realised. He wondered if his uncle had worked out where he’d gone yet. He wondered if maybe a Violet Systems helicopter would be able to rescue him before Kazuya killed him.

He took a step back from Kazuya and this time stumbled. He went down on one knee. Kazuya was sipping his whiskey again, just observing him. Jin wondered if when he woke up, he would see a G-Corp operating table. Jin wondered if he would _ever_ wake up. He looked up at Kazuya.

“Wait...” there was a hint of desperation in his voice now.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Kazuya said mildly.

“Wait,… I need to learn what you can do. I need to learn control. Teach me.”

Kazuya finished his whiskey and lit up a cigarette. The small orange flame briefly cast unnatural shadows on his face. The energy went out of Jin’s limbs and he slumped until he was kneeling on the ground.

“You fear harming those around you,” Kazuya observed. Jin nodded. Kazuya took a pull on his cigarette and slowly blew out twisting, velvety smoke, as if time wasn’t leaking away before him. “I will relieve you of that pain. I will remove your devil gene altogether. It will probably kill you. But it’ll put an end to your little conundrum either way.”

Jin looked up at him. He had imagined dying at this man’s hands many times, but he’d never imagined it looking like this. His uncles would be furious with him for letting his guard down. He wondered if they would cry for him. They didn’t really seem like crying type.

  
  
Jin searched in the face above him. His heartbeat was loud in his head now. His eyelids were fluttering with exhaustion. Kazuya still seemed so calm, softly blowing smoke out through his nostrils as he watched Jin start to collapse.

“I need your help. I’ve never asked you for anything before!”

Jin felt his body grow heavy as the chains drained him of strength. The last thing he saw as he slumped to the ground, was a slight frown creasing Kazuya’s brow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the love and comments so far, and welcome to new readers!


	4. Silver

Jin did wake up, much to his surprise. His eyelids flickered open. The first think he noticed was the arm of a machine poised over him. He blinked repeatedly, trying to bring the thing into focus. A little logo was printed on it. He squinted. It was not a Violet Systems logo. It was G-Corp.

He sat up abruptly and hit his head on it. He clapped his hand to his head and noticed a stream of tubes came with him when he moved his arm. He grabbed at them.

“Leave those, please.”

Jin nearly jumped out of his skin. Standing observing him was Kazuya Mishima. He was leaning casually against a wall, in a dark grey suit and violet shirt, arms folded, fingers drumming on his arms. Jin glanced wildly around him. Half a dozen scientists with G-Corp staff tags were all about him, holding clip boards. He was in an enormous laboratory, filled with bubbling equipment and tanks and tables and screens and machines. A number of G-Corp soldiers in black body armour with visors blocking out their eyes were moving towards him, rifles in their arms. Jin scrabbled backward on the bed.

Kazuya raised a hand and the soldiers stopped. He made a dismissive motion with his hand and scientists and soldiers alike took a few calculated paces back.

Jin’s eyes swivelled to Kazuya.

“W-… what are you doing to me?!” He brought his fists up. The tubes in his arm gave a plastic rattle. He winced as long needles shifted under his skin. There were shackles on his wrists he noticed now – either that or gaudy silvery bracelets. He turned his hands over. The shackles weren’t attached to anything, and neither did they chafe at his wrists.

“Those are a little gift,” Kazuya said mildly. Jin’s eyes flicked up and he shrunk further away, grasping for the rail on the other side of the bed. “I had some of those chains melted down. Whilst there’s not enough metal there to render you unconscious, there should be enough to repress your devil gene. You may feel periodically drowsy – if you start collapsing again, I’ll have some more of that metal shaved off.”

As soon as he said it, Jin could feel that quiet lethargy in his bones again. He touched the place where long needles fed deep into the veins on his arms.

“What are you doing to me?” he repeated. He could hear the slight desperation in his own voice, and that sleepiness slinking through his limbs did nothing to make him feel more confident. “My uncle will be looking for me,” he added. He was fairly certain that wouldn’t deter Kazuya, but saying it out loud at least made him feel less alone and frightened.

“Chaolan?” Kazuya’s lip wrinkled in distaste. “Yes, I’m aware. He’s been ringing me non-stop for the last few hours. I had one of his drones shot down a short while ago. He has a habit of picking up stray dogs without a cause. He feels a kinship with them I suppose.” Kazuya smiled unpleasantly.

Anger flared up in Jin. He wasn’t sure why that in particular made him angry. Maybe because his uncle’s face had seemed genuinely full of sorrow when he spoke of Kazuya, and here was Kazuya making light of the way Lee made an effort to care for the people who fell into his life.

“It’s called a sense of responsibility. And care. Not something you’d know anything about.” Jin’s voice was cold.

Kazuya didn’t seem all that concerned by the venom Jin spoke with. He tilted his head.

“You want me to care for you, Kazama Jin?”

Jin’s face went scarlet at the way his words had been twisted. He was plunged uncomfortably into the memories of his fifteen-year-old self, crying in the broken remnants of his home, wishing his father was alive, and that he’d been there to protect them and help them fight off the monster that had destroyed all trace of his mother. He’d been curious about his father before then, but he’d never had cause to need him – he had everything he needed in his mother. After that attack though, that had all changed. A special bitterness entered his heart for that absent father who should have been there. When he’d travelled on his own and left Yakushima for the first time, and turned up afraid and alone at the gates of the Mishima Estate, he had hoped beyond hope that his grandfather would fill some of that void. The more things went wrong in Jin’s life, the more he poured regret and hate and blame onto that invisible, so-called father, until by the time he met this legend, this originator of this devil gene, Jin was exploding with bitterness for the man.

“Of course not!” Jin spat, far too long after the pause that had reigned in the interim. Kazuya raised an eyebrow. Jin’s gaze darted round the room, mostly to avoid Kazuya’s gaze, but also to count how many people he needed to plough through as he made an exit for that door. There were a lot of guns in between. It was possible he could make it – using various machines as cover, and maybe a few of those scientists as shields. He’d rather not get civilians involved, but no G-Corp scientist was going to be innocent, they’d all have blood on their hands. The bigger problem was Kazuya, and these bracelets on Jin’s wrists.

“Planning an escape?” Kazuya asked. His voice had that same ostensibly cool tone to it, but Jin was surprised to hear some irritability there. “You’re the one who came to me. I’ve already done half of what you asked, which is, I assure you, more than Chaolan could have done.”

Jin’s eyes swivelled back to Kazuya. He looked down at the restraints on his arms again. He _had_ asked for his gene to be kept under control… Was this invasive set up actually Kazuya trying to help him?

“What are these for?” Jin was guarded. He pointed to the tubes in his arm.

“Blood tests. I’m running tests to ascertain differences between your blood and mine.”

Jin looked down. He hated being reminded of the similarities he shared with this man. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kazuya stiffen and shift his weight.

“Are you going to kill me?” Jin asked dully. Another shift, this time with more obvious irritation. Jin shrunk back, a little wary of what stirring Kazuya’s temper up might prompt. Again, out the corner of his eye, he saw Kazuya’s body language respond to his, and the man took a small step back and unfolded his arms, making himself less threatening. Jin wondered at that.

“Not if I can help it.” Kazuya glanced off to one side. “No point destroying valuable assets if the same procedure can be done with a live test subject.”

Jin’s brow creased in concern.

“Procedure?”

Kazuya’s eyes flashed. He was dark and unreadable. A host of uncertain things were behind that look, but Jin wasn’t sure what any of that meant. Kazuya clapped his hands suddenly, making Jin jump. He was relieved to see that he wasn’t the only one though, as a general ripple of fear flinched through the rest of the room.

“Clear the room.”

Jin watched with a gathering dread as armed guards, and scientists, and technicians he didn’t even know were there, and even some cleaners in orange vests, slowly cleared from the laboratory. Soon it was just him, the bubbling, nefarious-looking G-Corp experiments, and Kazuya left. Jin drew his legs up to his chest. The comfortable new clothes his uncle had bought him were gone, and he realised he was in a white hospital gown. The white felt exposing and very not him. Kazuya sat on the foot of his bed, as far as he could from him. Jin still inched back until he could feel the headboard digging into his spine.

“Those wristbands are only a temporary solution. The restrictions they place on the devil gene will always sap you of all your power, not just the elements you’re seeking to suppress. You have three options for what to do.” Now that everyone else had gone, the edge had gone from Kazuya’s voice. Jin had to remind himself this was the brutal head of G-Corp who would do anything for power, and not just someone calmly laying out his best options like some doctor with a cancer patient. “Option one is the one I’m obviously most familiar with. I can almost guarantee its success rate, provided your bloodwork comes back telling me you share the same genetic mutagens as me. This is the option that gives you power and control. It’s also the option everyone in your life who cares about you will tell you not to go for. It will make you strong. It will make you like me. It will make you unbeatable. You can come to an arrangement with the being inside you, until you effectively become one with it. It will have to bow to your every whim, but to do so your desires must on a basic level correspond to those of this demon. It perceives that its own will is being done anyway, so offers no resistance.”

“So… it’s really in control, not you?” Jin was disappointed.

“No. It’s more like – say you’ve been appointed CEO of the Zaibatsu, and you walk into the boardroom meeting and find someone already there leading the board, saying all the exact things you were planning on saying. Why disrupt the meeting? Your plans are all getting done anyway, no sense in barging in and trying to assert your authority. And since you and this other CEO have so much in common, where you do have differences, you can rest assured that because both of you share such similar goals, surrogate CEO can be trusted with the Zaibatsu. The Devil Gene is that would-be CEO who’s now content to sit in on the board meetings, taking the back seat whilst you take the company in the direction you wish.”

“So… I have to have demonic intentions in order to have control?”

“I didn’t say it would be pretty.”

Jin looked down.

“Uncle Lee said that it brought your personality closer to that of a devil. He said he barely recognised you anymore.”

“ _Hah._ ” Kazuya gave a bark of a laugh. “He said that? How would he know? He’s been avoiding me for years. I haven’t changed all that much, and that’s what really scares him. He wants to believe I was someone I was not. I’ve always been like this. He was just more blind before. He doesn’t want to admit he spent years working for someone with a highly dubious moral compass.”

“Uncle Lee used to work for you?”

“He didn’t tell you?” Kazuya mused. “Hm, why would he, I suppose. Not something I imagine he’s proud of. Chaolan’s secrets have secrets, you’ll find.”

Jin frowned. He didn’t want to hear bad things about his uncle. He wanted to trust him and not worry about his intentions. He knew he should have learned his lesson after Heihachi, but he so desperately wanted to have one foundation to fall back on and to build himself upon. His heart sunk.

“But despite that,” Kazuya put in, “whatever he’s told you is probably for your own good. Chaolan’s a manipulative bastard, but he’s fairly good at getting the welfare of others to line up with his own machinations and plots. And when it comes to you, I imagine even his own plots will come second.”

Jin looked up curiously.

“When it comes to me?”

  
  
“Of course. The me that he gets a chance to save. He’ll be all over you like a protective mother hen. He thinks he failed me and of course he wants to do better by Kazuya Mark II.”

“I am _not_ Kazuya Mark II,” Jin snarled.

“Hah. Don’t I know it. You’re just like her, and nothing like me. But Chaolan sees what he wants to. And my idiot brother has been desperate for redemption ever since he let himself be seduced into the Mishima lifestyle of power and wealth that he can’t quite bring himself to give up.”

Jin’s eyes flashed at the mention of his mother, but his face went through a series of confused frowns as Kazuya skated over the topic and moved into territory that made Jin reconsider. Lots of things Kazuya was saying made sense. He’d been aware that the words Lee said had layers beneath them, but he hadn’t quite anticipated these depths. Unsure what to say, Jin lingered in silence for a few moments, before asking:

“What about the other two options you said there were?”

Kazuya tapped his chin thoughtfully and made himself more comfortable on the bed. Jin realised his own posture had relaxed fractionally. His knees were no longer drawn all the way up to his chin, even if he did still hug them relatively close.

“Option two, is my favoured option.”

“I thought you said-”

“Option one is my preferred option for myself, option two is my preferred option for you. It maximises what I get out of all this.” Jin scowled. Kazuya smirked. “Option two, is we seek to extract the devil gene and restore it to its rightful place in me. I’ve been doing research into the procedure, and at present I can’t guarantee your survival of the process. I’ve tried to draw it from you before, but it was bound too closely to your life’s essence, and there are… complications with your blood: spiritual protections watching over it, preventing damage to your soul. I don’t really understand the elements that can still only be explained by supernatural means. I’ve made it my life’s work to leave nothing to ‘spiritual’ explanations, and with a great deal of success. But it remains the case that if you are to survive my attempt to draw the devil gene out of you, I will need to work much more closely with your blood samples. Something that will be a lot easier with you in my laboratories.”

“…”

“What?”

“… Survive your attempts?”

“That is what you want, isn’t it? If you’re suicidal, please say so now, it will save me a lot of trouble.”

“Why do you care if I live or die?”

Kazuya’s eyes narrowed and a crease appeared between his thick, black eyebrows.

“You came to _me,_ remember. Claiming to need me. You’re the desperate one.”

Jin wasn’t going to be fooled by that.

“And you have me at a disadvantage, with these metal bands suppressing the power I need to be a threat to you. You yourself said there was nothing stopping you from just taking what you want…”

“Well, I’m considering all my options,” Kazuya snapped. He folded his arms defensively and Jin recognised the sullen expression that was similar to his own when he felt caught out and embarrassed.

“I don’t understand,” Jin said slowly. He’d always assumed Kazuya wanting him dead was a given. The man had shown very little interest in him, aside from that incident where Heihachi had him in chains and Kazuya had taken the opportunity to try and take the devil gene from him. Aside from that, their only interactions had really been Kazuya’s systematic attempt to rival the Zaibatsu’s influence as Jin ran it into the ground with his chaotic warmongering over the last year or two. Could it really be that this man didn’t hate him as much as Jin had assumed he did? Jin despised the way a flutter of excitement flitted in his chest at the possibility. He tried to crush that hope immediately. It was foolish and idiotic and exactly the kind of thing that had been ruining his life for years.

“What don’t you understand?” Kazuya said with obvious mockery. “I’m trying to explain it very slowly to you so that your simple mind can understand. Didn’t you finish school? Probably not from the abysmal way you were running the Zaibatsu.”

Jin grated his teeth together. He in fact hadn’t got around to finishing school, but Kazuya didn’t need to know that. He left off that line of questioning, since it seemed to make Kazuya more defensive and drag forth a series of unending insults from him.

“What about the third option?”

The derision in Kazuya’s expression faded. He sat back and chewed his lip in thought for a few moments. Jin watched him hopefully, if there could be a way that didn’t involve bowing to a demon’s will or dying, surely this would be the answer.

“I heard of a third way, but I don’t know if it’s possible anymore.”

Kazuya sounded quieter and reflective as he said this. Jin put his knees down and sat cross-legged on the bed, he leaned forward slightly.

“Tell me. Please.” He looked at Kazuya eagerly. Kazuya’s brow twitched in response. He paused and his eyes seemed to flick over Jin.

Eventually Kazuya said, “there is an old exorcism rite that can be done. And after that you must cease all reliance on the demon, detaching it from yourself. You must war inside yourself for the better part of you. And eventually the demon can have no power over you, and is driven forth. In principle anyway.”

“Have you tried it?” Jin forgot his fear in his enthusiasm, eyes bright as he looked up at Kazuya.

Kazuya cricked his neck. He stroked his chin and chewed on his thoughts.

“Once. But I had help, the kind of help that can’t be found anymore.”

“What happened?” Jin struggled to contain his impatience. “Did it not work?”

“Hmm?” Kazuya frowned, “Oh, no, the ritual worked fine, as far as I could tell. But it wasn’t the right time. I needed the power. I had to call on the demon again and…” he shrugged. He flicked open his cigarette case and selected one. He offered the box to Jin. Jin looked between him and the box. Kazuya raised an eyebrow. “Is that irresponsible of me? Fine.” He snapped the case shut and pocketed it again.

“I want to try the ritual to exorcise the demon.”

“I thought you wanted control,” Kazuya said around his cigarette as he lit it. He drew a drag then tilted back his head and blew out smoke that furled and twisted under the bright laboratory strip lighting.

“I-… I don’t want to hurt the people around me.”

“You can’t defeat me without that devil gene.”

“Says who?” Jin returned quickly. Kazuya took his cigarette out his mouth. Silver smoke curled about the hard lines of his jaw. The dull red of his mismatched eye pierced through the haze with a faint eerie glow. The cigarette hung lazy between his fingers.

“You can’t do the ritual.”

“Why not!?”

“Need a Kazama to do it.”

Jin stared at him.

“Who did it for you?” Jin asked.

Kazuya looked at him. The cigarette had paused on the way back to his mouth. A white furl swirled up from its end. Kazuya sucked on it and breathed smoke out slowly through his nose. Jin looked away; he had all the confirmation that he needed.

“I have a cousin,” Jin said, “maybe she could-”

“Maybe she could, maybe she couldn’t. I don’t know anything about that. You came here and you asked for control. I can give you that control, or I can keep you in here and study your blood, and we can see if we can improve chances of being able to surgically remove the devil gene from you.”

“I want to see if my cousin can perform the ritual.”

“I’ll have her brought here. In the meantime, I want to study your blood.”

“Alright.”

He saw Kazuya blink in surprise, clearly expecting more resistance than that.

“Alright?” Kazuya repeated.

“That makes sense to me. I can stay here and wear these arm bands to suppress the gene, and you can study me, and Asuka can come here and see if she can help me.” Jin thought for a moment. “But we should let my uncle know, or he might try and burn down your building to get me back.”

“He might just,” Kazuya muttered. “I’ll talk to him. If you do it, he’ll convince you to go back, and I don’t want that.”

Jin appreciated the implication that he might have a choice over whether he stayed at G-Corp, even though he was fairly sure he didn’t. He nodded at Kazuya’s words.

“He probably would convince me,” he admitted, “and I don’t want that either.”

Kazuya gave Jin a smirk. Jin swallowed and felt pride swell in his chest. He looked away quickly, heat rising in his cheeks. He couldn’t do this every time someone he looked up to acknowledged him. Not that he looked up to Kazuya, he thought to himself quickly, he despised the man and all he stood for. He was just a hard man not to be impressed by, and Jin had always wondered what it might feel like to have a father that was pleased with him.

Jin was reminded uncomfortably of uncle’s gentle words, and the terror he must be feeling now that Jin had run to G-Corp. His face fell. Lee had gone out of his way to help him, give him a place to feel safe in, and tried to do right by him…

“Could…” Jin started. Kazuya had stood up. He paused now and looked down at him. His eyes were sharp and intense. Jin hesitated. Kazuya made a small gesture with his hand for him to continue. “Could I let him know that I’m alright?”

Kazuya raised an eyebrow. Jin watched him uncertainly. He realised he didn’t know this man at all, and that he’d exchanged more words with him in the last half hour than he’d ever done before in his entire life.

Kazuya sat back down on the bed suddenly, making Jin flinch in surprise. He brought out a mobile phone from his inside jacket pocket, selected a number, then offered it to Jin.

“It’s ringing.”

Jin took the phone gingerly, careful to avoid touching Kazuya’s fingers as he did. He put the phone to his ear, keeping his eyes on Kazuya. The man simply crossed his legs and smoked, tapping ash away on the aluminium frame of the bed.

Jin took a deep breath as he waited. The line picked up. Jin opened his mouth to attempt a greeting but was cut off before a sound came out.

“Kaz, you bastard! If you’ve hurt him, I’ll kill you!”

Jin blinked. He looked at the phone, then at Kazuya. Kazuya blew smoke out his mouth.

“Um… Uncle Lee?”

“ _Jin?!_ ”

“It’s me. I’m fine.”

“Jin!… Jin, I thought-…” Jin could hear emotion in his uncle’s voice. Lee was always so reserved, full of pleasantries and facades – it hit Jin hard somewhere low in his stomach to hear that much pain in his voice.

“I’m sorry I worried you.”

“Jin…” There was a sound Jin couldn’t quite place, then a pause. After that, his uncle sounded more collected. “You went to G-Corp.”

Jin’s face flushed with guilt.

“I had to. But it’s alright. I can get help from-” Jin paused. He didn’t want to be disrespectful now that Kazuya was being accommodating, but he had no intention of calling him father, or using something more formal and deferential. Eventually he finished lamely, “-… from him.”

“Whatever Kazuya has promised you, Jin, it’s not what you want. It’s not worth it. You need t-”

Jin looked up. Kazuya’s hand was in his face, beckoning for the phone. Jin opened his mouth to speak, but Kazuya gave him a look. Jin obediently handed the phone back. Kazuya put the phone to his ear.

“Good afternoon, little brother,” Kazuya said lazily. He gave Jin a smirk as a tirade of cursing came tinny from the phone. He tapped on the speaker so that Jin could hear the impressively colourful language his uncle was using. Jin shrunk into his white hospital gown. “Careful, Chaolan, Jin’s young, innocent ears are listening.”

“Fuck you, Kaz! Let him go this instant! I know what you’ve been doing in G-Corp! I’ve got spies in your building and I’ve seen the experiments you’ve been conducting in-”

“Oops,” Kazuya tapped the speaker off again and gave Jin a mild smile. He put his hand over the speaker and whispered to Jin conspiratorially, “your uncle talks too much.”

Jin watched with mixed guilt and fascination as Kazuya handled the fury on the other end of the line.

“He’s not in a cell, and he’s not chained… anymore. Stop shouting, calm down. I’m not planning to kill him if I can help it. And no, I’m not – He’s not – Would you let me speak, you irritating maggot? No. Of course not. Would I do that? No, don’t answer that.” Kazuya stood and began pacing. His tone became more serious as he went on, and at one point, he walked out of the laboratory, still talking. Jin was left alone in silence save for the ominous sound of machinery all around him.

  
  
Jin looked down at the thick bracelets on his arms. He touched the cold steel. His fingerprints clouded the gleaming metal. With this he could finally be free. He could be rid of the fear that at any moment that monster would seize control of him. It wasn’t ideal, and he felt like he was about to collapse at any moment, but he could do things normal people could do again. He could sit down and enjoy a meal with friends, go to the arcades, maybe go back to school or at least attend a college, perhaps visit Yakushima again, live a normal life. A normal life in the shadow of a world seized by Mishima Kazuya as he took the Zaibatsu for his own and joined it to his G-Corporation empire.

Jin looked down at his hands. How could it feel selfish to want to get rid of this power, to want to be close to people again? Why was it up to him to stop his father? Kazuya. Not his father. He didn’t have a father, he corrected himself.

He sighed and tugged aside the hospital slip to look at the devil mark permanently branded on his upper arm. What would his mother do? She always knew the right thing to do. Was it better to keep this power to fight a worse evil, or would it drag him down with it? Should he be rid of it and try to rely on his own strength? Or was that just him making excuses because he wanted to be rid of this curse? Or was he making excuses because secretly this power was useful, and he wanted to keep it to crush his enemies? He closed his eyes. Maybe his uncle had been right, maybe he should focus on what was within his control first. But Kazuya’s promises were so tempting… And the way he spoke to Jin like he didn’t hate him or want to kill him… Even if Jin knew that was just because there were other things his father wanted from him, there was something exhilarating about being here and being spoken to and the slight looks Kazuya gave him that Jin wanted to believe had affection in them.

_Not again. Never again. You know how this ends. Trust no one._

“Kazama?” Kazuya had come back in. Jin looked up at him hopefully. “Chaolan’s not pleased, but he’s not about to invade G-Corp. He’s willing to respect your decision. But he wants in. By which I mean, he wants to babysit you, to make sure I don’t perform evil experiments on you.”

“But I want you to perform experiments…”

Kazuya gave him a wicked grin.

“And you trust me not to turn you into an abomination of nature?”

Jin frowned.

“I’m already an abomination of nature, what more could you do?”

Kazuya raised his eyebrows. Jin looked away.

“Is that a serious question, or are you just wallowing in self-pity? Because I can take you down to some real G-Corp labs if you want to see some proper human experimentation.”

Jin scowled.

“Is that what Uncle Lee was talking about on the phone? What do you do down there?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

A flicker of uncertainty was on Jin’s face now. In his mind, the lower levels of G-Corp were filled with comic-book style monsters whilst Kazuya folded his arms and cackled maniacally in the background as his creations came to life.

Kazuya laughed at his expression. It wasn’t a maniacal cackle – it sounded just human.

“Relax, I’m not interested in making you stronger. You’re already enough of a thorn in my side.” Jin’s insides warmed and a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “So that famous frown does disappear sometimes…”

Jin looked away again quickly.

“Will you let Uncle Lee come here?”

“Do you want him here?”

Jin glanced up, surprised he was being asked.

“I-… Yes.”

“Even though he’ll be furious, and try to stop us?”

_Us._ Jin tried not to dwell too much on that and the confused feelings of disgust and belonging that arose simultaneously within him.

“He wants to look out for me. He’s just doing what he thinks he needs to. He’ll make me think twice about my bad decisions.”

“Yeah, he does that. Not always a good thing.”

“It’s good for me to hear opinions I don’t want to sometimes.”

“A wiser man than me.” Jin blushed. Kazuya’s eyebrows raised again. “Are you going to get embarrassed every time I even slightly compliment you, Kazama?”

“I’m not embarrassed!” Jin could feel mortification rising within him. “I’m just surprised is all. All these years I thought you just wanted to kill me.”

Kazuya’s face ticked to impatience.

“What gave you that idea? And what do you mean ‘all these years’ I only knew you existed two or maybe three years ago.”

“You didn’t exactly give a great first impression.”

“Heihachi was the one who strung you up in Hon-Maru, not me.”

“Because you objected so much. Right.”

Kazuya’s face pulled a snarl at Jin’s sarcasm. Jin felt a flutter of panic at the sight of it, but his stubbornness was stronger than his sense of self-preservation.

“Of course I objected! You think I’d let that old fool go around terrorising my own son without raising an objection?!”

Jin stared at him.

Kazuya seemed to realise he’d said too much. He turned away abruptly. Jin desperately wanted him to stay and explain what he meant by that, but his mouth had gone dry and his heart was beating too fast for him to form coherent words.

“Sleep,” Kazuya ordered. “You can’t move anyway until those transfusions are done, and those metal bands will chafe away at your strength. Chaolan will want to see you the moment he arrives, so get some rest.” Jin looked dubiously at the long needles in his arms. “If you have trouble getting to sleep, I’d be happy to help.” Kazuya thumped his fist into an open hand threateningly.

“I’ll be fine,” Jin said hastily. Kazuya laughed.

He left again, but this time Jin didn’t feel so anxious. He slid slowly down into the bed and drew up the sheet. It was still cold so he pulled his knees up to his chest.

When he slept, Jin dreamed he was back in Yakushima where the trees were wide, with red bark, and the air was heavy and warm and the skies went gold at sunset, and thick mists rolled down from the hills to blanket the valleys in dusted silver. He dreamed of his mother stroking his hair and talking softly to him whilst his father stood by, giving him a small smile that was filled with pride and approval.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've done lots of RPing with Thalie as post-20 yr gap Kaz and Lee, so lots of this dynamic is something of joint creation :)  
> Thanks for all your reviews, and yes, this is the chapter that sets up the direction this little story is going in. Desperate-for-a-second-chance Lee, still-pining-for-a-family Jin, bastard-but-can-maybe-be-convinced-to-have-a-bit-of-heart Kaz.


	5. Velvet

Jin awoke sleepy and warm under a heavily embroidered blanket that smelt of coffee and sugar. Chocolate brown eyes met his as soon as blinked awake.

“Uncle Lee,” Jin murmured.

Lee smiled and brushed a stray hair from Jin’s face.

Jin was too tired to protest the familiarity, and besides, it felt nice to be worried over again.

“I feel like I haven’t slept at all,” Jin admitted through lidded eyes. His uncle’s face darkened.

“That would be Kazuya’s fault. He took too much blood from you, and didn’t account for how that metal you’re wearing would drain your strength.”

Jin blinked slowly and yawned. His forearms ached from where the needles had been and were tracked with purple bruises, but he was glad to see all the tubes had been removed.

“Are you okay?” Jin said, looking up at Lee.

“Me?” his uncle returned, “I’m not the one who just asked the world’s foremost evil genetics corporation to begin experimenting on me.” Jin could hear the soft anger behind those words.

Jin gave him a small, apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry I ran off. And I’m sorry I worried you. I’m grateful for all you did for me, I just-”

“-Believed it wasn’t enough.” Lee’s eyes were sharp. Jin felt small. Lee sighed and came and sat on the bed. Jin shuffled up to make room for him. “I know it’s difficult, and I know it feels like the world is on your shoulders. But you don’t have to do this alone anymore, Jin. I want to help you, and following Kazuya’s path-”

“I’m not following his path. He gave me options. I’m not choosing to do what he did. Not immediately anyway. He said there was a rite that could be performed by a Kazama.”

Lee looked a little taken aback at that. Jin watched his brow furrow. Distant thoughts seemed to pass through his eyes like a view from a moving train. His uncle was ethereal and spectral under the cold light of the G-Corp lab. The strands of his silvery hair moved like cobwebs as he breathed. Jin wondered what happened in his head in the pauses where he removed himself from the world.

“Be that as it may, Jin,” Lee said quietly, “don’t… don’t try and get too close.”

Jin propped himself up on an elbow.

“Close to what?” he bit off. His uncle gave him a knowing look. “I have no intention of getting close to him. He just has something I want, that’s all.”

“Jin-”

“Don’t _Jin_ me.”

“Trust me. This is coming from someone who wanted what you want. Acceptance, affection, family.” Jin stared at him. His uncle was looking away again and Jin couldn’t see his face. “But don’t look for that in Kazuya. He burns the people who get close to him.”

“He told me you’re trying to help me because you feel guilty for not saving him.”

Lee stood. The was an air of finality in the movement. He paced the lab. Jin wondered if he was angry. When he spoke again, the vulnerability in his voice was gone, and an affected air returned to him.

“There’s no need to host you in such drab accommodations as these!” He turned on the spot, arms outspread, his coat a twirl of expensive indigo and embroidery that winked in the light. “Taking blood doesn’t require an entire laboratory! I shall see that you’re moved to somewhere more suitable. Only the best will do for my young nephew!” He turned to face Jin and put his hands on his hips. “Now, are you hungry? I bet he hasn’t even fed you.”

And like that the conversation was over, and no amount of wheedling could bring Lee Chaolan back to the topic of his guilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter today. The next one will be up soon though, so don't worry. I have a new discord server where I'm posting updates and chatting about fics, so if you'd like to join, feel free leave your discord username in the comments.


	6. Glamour

Later that day, Jin was called to Kazuya’s office on the top floor of G-Corp tower. After shaking off his uncle’s concerns, he made the trip alone in the elevator. He’d had a light lunch and eaten all the chocolate his uncle had piled into his lap, and while he felt a little less faint, the combined effect of the suppressing shackles and the blood that had been taken still left him tired and light-headed.

Kazuya’s office boasted an impressive view of Tokyo. It was a very similar view to the one Jin had enjoyed from the Zaibatsu Headquarters before his departure to the Arabian Desert. He tilted his head as he waited in the wide, spacious office for Kazuya to appear. He could see the Zaibatsu from here. Strange to think such a short stretch of land stood between the two superpowers of the world. Tokyo was all steel towers glittering in the light. Black specks of birds in flight moved across the wan winter sun. Trailing tails of cloud were rimmed in white gold. The world from up here was impersonal and empty. The sort of place one could make genocidal decisions from, without ever seeing a consequence.

He turned away from the window.

When he’d stood in here before Kazuya last, it had been with a fair awareness that this could be the end. He stared at the spot where he’d knelt, looking up into those cruel eyes, one permanently inflected with the glowing red of the devil gene. He wondered if that was something his own gene would inflict on him some day.

Jin meandered around the office as he waited. The desk dominating the room was tidy and neat. He found himself wondering about the man who used it, and how little he knew about him. A clean ash tray sat in one corner of it, and a set of crystal tumblers next to a three-quarters-full bottle of Talisker. He looked at the chair with its high back. The long black overcoat Kazuya favoured was cast casually over it. Jin had decided to wear a similar one when he took over the Zaibatsu. He hadn’t really known what he was doing at the time. He’d thought perhaps he shouldn’t wear his loud sports hoodie emblazoned with flames, or his light tracksuit bottoms. He hadn’t really known anything about being a businessman or looking the part. He still didn’t really know anything about that. He’d been trying for a long time to fit into the Mishima’s world and that Tokyo cityscape, but his heart wandered more and more often to the wilds of his home island and those now forbidden-feeling retreats in the heart of nature.

He touched the long coat on the back of the chair. The leather was fine tailored, but soft and pliant with wear and wind. He wondered what it would be like to put it on, and to sit in this chair. Maybe he’d finally feel as cool and collected as Kazuya always looked.  
  
Jin stifled a yawn that shook his body. He glanced around him. The large empty office stood silent and still. The leaves on a tall bamboo potplant in the corner shifted slightly as a heating unit blew gentle air into the room.

_Fuck it,_ Jin thought. _He’s the one making me wait when he ordered me to meet him here._

He picked up the coat and pulled it on. The leather was warm and comfortable. The fit was almost perfect. The hem was a fraction longer than he would have liked, and his shoulders were not quite wide enough for the hang of the thing, but other than that… He turned on the spot, admiring the fan of the coat tails. He would have liked a mirror to check his appearance, but he had to settle for the dark varnish finish on the desk before him. He stood straight and proud, and gave his best serious frown. He sat down and let himself sink into the desk chair. He interlocked his hands and set them on the desk. He imagined someone walking in and addressing him. _The G-Corp experiments have been a success, Mr Kazama._ Would it sound better if he’d been called Mishima? That felt like a treacherous thought. The Kazamas had given him everything and every happy memory he had. The Mishimas had brought him nothing but curses and pain. Kazama didn’t sound like it belonged in a corporate tower though. Kazama sounded like typhoons blowing in off a black sea beneath thick tropical conifer forests and endless rains slating mountain moss to mud.

The door to the office slid open.

Jin jumped out of the chair and took a few hasty steps back toward the window. Kazuya paused in the doorway. Jin felt heat hit his cheeks. He looked down at himself still in Kazuya’s coat.

“It was cold,” he offered, “I just-…” He quickly began to take his arms out the jacket.

“Wear it, if you’re cold,” Kazuya said lazily. He moved easily across the room, all languor and aristocratic elegance. Jin felt panic and the stone weight of embarrassment low in his stomach. Kazuya went to a shelf and brought down a crystal decanter. He drew its glass stopper out and poured in a generous amount of amber whiskey from the bottle on his desk.

“No, it’s fine-”

“I insist,” Kazuya said, with just enough authority to his voice to make Jin hesitate.

Jin felt foolish and small. He wished he felt more alert. Feeling drowsy around this man felt far too dangerous. Kazuya gestured to the office chair, the only one in the room. Jin’s face went so red that even his ears heated up. He lowered his eyes.

“I’ll stand,” Jin muttered.

“Nonsense. You’ve lost a lot of blood today. Sit.” Jin looked up, pained chagrin on his features. Kazuya met his eyes. “Sit,” he said again, just a fraction more firmly. Jin slunk back to the chair and perched on its edge. His gaze wandered tentatively back up to Kazuya, wondering if there was to be some kind of reprimand or humiliating punishment for taking these liberties. Kazuya ignored him and restoppered the decanter. He took the whiskey bottle and set it on a far shelf, then returned and sat on the edge of his desk.

Jin shifted in his seat, feeling very out of his essence. He was struck by the urge to apologise as he sat, squirming under Kazuya’s intense stare. He held his tongue though. He owed this man nothing. So what if he borrowed a stupid coat and sat in his stupid chair? Kazuya was a violent, cruel, tyrant, with no morals to speak of and probably only tentatively this side of sane. Jin had no intention of projecting his need for a family onto someone like that.

Kazuya poured himself a glass. Jin noticed he didn’t offer him one this time. He scowled at this. He was a grown man and had no desire to be treated as a child. He opened his mouth to demand a drink of whatever Kazuya was having.

“You’re not having any. You’re down one and a half pints of blood. Whisky will mess you up. And besides, I’ll be taking more blood soon, don’t want alcohol screwing up the tests.”

Jin shut his mouth. There was silence for a few moments. It was broken by the clink of Kazuya setting his glass back down.

“Chaolan wants you moved to a more comfortable room.”

“I’m fine,” Jin said immediately. “Comfort isn’t important.”

“Well it is to him, and he’s breathing down my neck about it, so I’m having you moved to another location.”

“Away from G-Corp Tower?” Jin asked. He didn’t mean to, but that somehow came out disappointed. Kazuya’s eyebrows raised again.

“Well I hardly have five star suites in my company office block. G-Corp owns a number of properties across Tokyo. There’s a quieter lab opposite a luxury apartment block I own.”

“I don’t want to stay in some apartment on my own with only doctors coming in and out.”

Now Kazuya’s eyes narrowed. The sight of it made Jin’s pulse pick up and pinch of nervousness touch his gut.

Kazuya sipped his whiskey.

“What do you want, then?”

_To stay here, where I can get to know you._ The thought came so keen and clear to Jin that he internally cringed at it. Logic said he should put as much distance between himself and this man as possible, and a comfortable apartment on his own ordinarily sounded much more like the kind of thing he’d prefer.

Jin drew the long coat about him and frowned as he looked down. He didn’t have a good answer, and he didn’t want to look like some spoiled child. Guilt at whatever this was that he wanted, and being here in the first place, and the idea that he could still be wanting things for himself at all when there were so many bigger things at stake, all curled in his stomach.

“Stop that.”

Jin looked up. Kazuya was looking at him oddly. Confusion was in Kazuya’s brow and he shifted his weight uncomfortably.

“Stop what?”

“Looking like that. Looking like-…” A pause. Kazuya’s lip twitched and his eyes became distant. “Tell me what you want. Don’t stew it all up. I can’t make it happen if you lock yourself in your head.”

Jin stared at him. Since when did Kazuya care what he wanted? Jin opened his mouth, then shut his mouth. What was he meant to say? That despite everything that had happened, he found himself still wanting to be able to trust again, still wanting to have a family, still wanting to have someone to lean on so that he didn’t have to fight the whole world alone? That even though he’d been indirectly fighting Kazuya for years, he still didn’t know him, and wanted to know what kind of man hid behind the faceless G-Corporation? That he still missed his mother and had done every day since she’d been taken from him, and a small part of him wondered if she had seen something in Kazuya that the world had missed, and that finding that might be a bit like having part of her back?

Jin looked away. He could feel Kazuya’s gaze resting heavy on him, scrutinising his unease.

“You can stay here if you wish,” Kazuya said slowly. “The tower is hardly comfortable, but I can move you out of that lab into somewhere with a little more privacy and amenities.”

“Didn’t you live here for years?” Jin asked, questions tumbling out of nowhere to hide his inner turmoil. “I heard G-Corp ran experiments on you before you took over the company.”

Kazuya’s eyes narrowed again.

“Indeed,” he said, just a little tightly. “But comfort was not a priority then, and I didn’t have Chaolan fawning over me the way you do.”

There was something in his voice as he said that. Hidden things. But Jin didn’t know him well enough to parse what that might be.

“Where did you stay when you lived here?” Jin wondered how many questions he could ask before he got punched.

“In a tank.” Jin peered up at Kazuya, frowning in confusion. “In a tank, in a lab,” Kazuya clarified. “My body was being put back together. After I regained consciousness, I saw wisdom in letting the experiments on my genes proceed.”

“You were in a tank? What, like a water tank? Did you sleep in there?”

Kazuya took out his cigarette case. He spent a long moment selecting one, meticulously setting it between his fingers then flicking a silver lighter over its end. He breathed smoke slowly out of his mouth, letting it shape to his breath.

“Suspended in a tank of water. Indeed. Little sleep was required. I was in a drug-induced state most of the time.”

“Did it hurt? The experiments?”

Silence. Then,

“So many questions. They told me you were a silent type, Kazama Jin. Rest assured, the procedures I have in mind for you require no such process.”

Jin watched him carefully. He hadn’t answered his question. He wondered how long Kazuya had let himself be kept like that by G-Corp. Jin imagined him hung in a tank of water, fat needles like the ones he’d found in himself all sticking out of Kazuya like a pincushion. He shuddered at the thought.

“I’ve contacted the Kazama Ryu dojo in Osaka,” Kazuya said, turning the subject elsewhere. “Kazama Asuka was not present at the time, but her father is contacting her on your behalf.”

“On _my_ behalf?”

“It would hardly do for her to hear my name. I rarely attract the right kind of attention. And besides, I hear she’s rather fond of you.”

Jin folded his arms and sunk back into the G-Corp CEO chair.

“I barely know her. But she’s annoying. And too loud.”

“Hah.” Kazuya blew out another ream of smoke and tapped his cigarette on the ash tray on his desk. “How did Kazamas end up in Osaka anyway? I thought all the immediate family were in Yakushima.”

“My mother’s uncle ran a dojo in the next village over, but it was always difficult for him to gain students with the dojo my mother and her sister ran so close by. He moved to Osaka when I was very young. He was doing well there, I think, settled down and started a family, but the dojo attracted some unwanted interest.”

“Mm, I heard it was attacked by Feng Wei. I’ve seen the man before – he participated in a number of tournaments. The dojo must have been doing well to attract his attention.”

“It seems the lot of Kazamas to attract the attention of those who wish to destroy the simple lives we’ve built for ourselves.”

Silence.

Jin stared at the ash tray with its crumbling soft grey mountains, so that he could keep his eyes averted. His pulse was fast and angry and he could feel bitterness and hate stirring inside him. The steel cuffs on his wrists felt tight. He focussed on trying to regulate his own breathing.

“You did well in your fight against Ogre,” Kazuya said slowly, and just a little guardedly. “That wasn’t an easy foe to destroy.”

Some of Jin’s rage subsided. Kazuya wasn’t a man to throw his praise around idly. Jin still struggled to hold down the pain and fury that was coursing through his veins, but those words tempered him. His mind was on his small Yakushima home, smoking and collapsed around him, the open sky pouring rain down on him as he lay alone in the wreckage of his life – his mother gone, a monster’s footsteps delved deep in the mud, and the hours since he’d been knocked out written into the silence of the scene around him. He could still feel the rain slide down his cheeks in place of the tears that somehow wouldn’t come. And where had Kazuya been whilst all that happened? Here? In G-Corp? Just searching for more power?

  
  
“If I had not been dead at the time, I would have gone after the creature myself.” Kazuya sounded almost casual, but there was something very deliberate in his words and there was an edge to his gaze, Jin realised, as he looked up.

Dead. He could blame this man rightly for a lot of things, but being dead at the time of the attack on Jin’s mother was hardly something he could be held accountable for… Jin looked away. Somewhere along the way, hatred for his fate had gone hand in hand with hating Kazuya. Discovering all the ways his father might be less guilty than he first suspected wasn’t making Jin feel better though, it was just taking away a target for his hurt. He wasn’t sure how to express the unjustified disappointment he felt towards this man.

“You were just a little too late. Seems to be a habit of yours.”

Another silence.

Jin stared hard at the desk before him and bit his lip. The surface was so shiny he could see the deep knit eyebrows of Kazuya glaring back up at him from the reflection in the varnish.

“Something you want to say to me, Kazama?” Kazuya’s voice was light, playful even, and threaded through with threat that made all the hairs on the back of Jin’s neck stand up.

“No...” Jin mumbled.

“Sorry?” Kazuya said sharply.

“No, sir.” Jin corrected, before he could stop himself. Like he was back in school, and not talking to the man he’d sworn to take down, and sworn never to respect, and sworn never to think of as a father. He kept his eyes lowered, furious with himself.

He saw Kazuya’s posture unstiffenin the reflection though. Something tightly coiling in Jin’s chest also unravelled in response to that.

“If you have nothing more to say, you may return to the laboratory for the present. I will have somewhere new sorted for you soon.”

Jin kept his head lowered. He was losing his opportunity. He needed to say something more if he wanted a chance to understand this man. What could he say, though, that wouldn’t be weird?

“I want to fight.”

“Hm?”

Jin had muttered that, so he spoke up with more decisiveness now.

“I want to fight. To spar with you.”

Kazuya raised an eyebrow.

“In your condition?”

“I could still take you!” Jin insisted.

“You can barely walk. And besides, at present it’s likely to be counter-intuitive to the attempts we’re making to subdue your devil gene.”

Jin’s face fell.

“But-”

“We’ll see. Such an arrangement may be useful in future. Perhaps we can talk about it over dinner. I could have somewhere reserved for this evening. I need to speak with Chaolan about some matters anyway, so a dinner with the three of us would be ideal. Does that suit you?”

A light brightened in Jin’s eyes. He nodded, hopefully not too enthusiastically.

“Good. Run along then, although I’d appreciate the return of my coat,” Kazuya added.

Jin went beet red and quickly took off the long coat. He draped it back over the chair then made a wide circle to avoid Kazuya as he made for the door. He paused before he got there and bowed to him.

“Thank you.” He wasn’t quite sure what he was thanking him for. “Uh. Goodbye.” Jin fled before he could mess up this interaction anymore. He caught sight of a bemused expression on Kazuya’s face as he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today you get flustered Jin Kazama. He'll chill out a bit and regain his cool in future, but today he's sleepy and embarassed and awkward.


	7. Sunlight

Jin was sitting at the only table in a restaurant, in a suit that had been tailored that afternoon. His uncle and Kazuya sat at opposite ends of the table. Jin had an uncomfortable middle seat, equidistant between their glowering as they glared at each other over their menus.

“I see by ‘reservation’, you meant ‘book the entire restaurant out’. I’m not sure why I expected you to have changed after twenty years.” Lee’s voice was scathing as he lowered his menu.

Jin’s eyes flicked over the empty room. An ornamental bamboo plant stood in a pot of perfectly round grey pebbles near a red oak window cut to imitate a traditional circle design. A fishpond filled with golden koi bubbled with a fountain that mimicked a stream bouncing over stones. The room was perfectly square, almost looking like it was naturally intended only to contain one table.

Kazuya kept reading his menu, a mild expression on his face as he did not look up.

“I thought it for the best, I know how you play up to an audience and love to flaunt yourself in public.”

“I’m not the one who lit up Tokyo as I lasered a satellite out of orbit.”

Now Kazuya lowered his menu. He pushed a pair of sunglasses to the bridge of his nose and looked over them at his brother.

“Heihachi lost control of that satellite, it had nothing to do with me.”

“ _Please,_ ” Lee scoffed, “does anyone actually believe that story?”

Kazuya shrugged. “The people who matter.”

“You lasered a satellite out of _space_?” Jin dragged his eyes away from the koi tails flicking the surface of the pool and turned to Kazuya with some interest. “What, with your…?” he touched the place in his forehead where the third eye would open when his devil gene took over.

Kazuya looked at him. Jin’s pulse beat a little faster.

“There are so many things we do not know about the devil gene. There are powers we can still unlock, mysteries we have yet to unravel.”

The way he said ‘we’ almost made Jin forget the content of his words. Lee coughed and laid his menu down on the table.

“Have you chosen what you want to eat, Jin?” Lee asked. There was a sharpness in his gaze that made Jin cringe a little inside. Jin glanced at the menu.

“I’m not really sure what most of the things on this are…”

“Really? I heard that you lived with Heihachi for four years. Did he never take you to a restaurant?” That was Kazuya. It was bizarre to Jin that he could be asking about restaurants so nonchalantly, when just a few days before Jin had seen the images Heihachi’s body with a scar across his sternum from the force of Kazuya’s punch that had stopped his heart beating.

“Not really…” Jin replied.

“I suppose that explains why you didn’t have any suits to hand either. Were there really not any in the Zaibatsu? I gave Chaolan permission to go and fetch any of your belongings for you…”

“I don’t need permission from _you_ ,” Lee snapped. Lots of his cool seemed to evaporate when he was around Kazuya. “And I’m not some butler to be sent here and there fetching suits.”

“Uh… I didn’t have any suits at the Zaibatsu either…” Jin put in, trying to de-escalate what looked like another budding argument.

“Really? What did you wear? Just those out-of-taste trousers with flames up the legs?”

“ _You_ wear out-of-taste trousers with flames up the legs, Kaz.”

“ _In the ring_ , Chaolan. And they’re stylised gi bottoms. I wouldn’t go to fucking work in the things, would I.” Kazuya turned back to Jin. “Heihachi really let you walk around dressed like that?”

Jin blinked. Colour rose in his cheeks.

“Uh-… He-… Uh-… He didn’t mind what I wore, he was just interested in how I trained…”

Lee turned to look at him now, his eyebrows twitching.

“He didn’t care at all? He didn’t make you dress smartly for business trips with him?”

“I… didn’t really go on many business trips. Once to Korea… But most of my time with him was just training at his dojo, and going to school.”

Kazuya spat out some wine he’d just sipped.

“ _School?_ ”

“Father opened that school: Mishima Polytechnic,” Lee said. “Really, Kaz, have you not read up on everything that happened whilst you were suspended in a tank having experiments run on yourself?”

“My secretary is shit? Hoping I can get my old one back to remedy the situation.”

“Fuck off.”

Jin stared at his uncle. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard him swear before, aside from that phonecall he’d heard between him and Kazuya. Lee pulled a menthol cigarette out of his pocket. His fingers looked a little more unsteady than usual. Kazuya reached into his jacket, but a sharp look from his brother stopped him. Lee pulled out his own lighter and lit his cigarette. He leaned back and inhaled deeply. A waiter came over with small timid steps.

“Mr Lee, if you wouldn’t mind, this restaurant has a no-”

“You can fuck off too,” Lee informed him. The waiter gave a weak smile, bowed and backed off.

“You’re in such a terrible mood today, brother!” Kazuya said with a brightness that seemed to conceal malicious glee.

Lee shot him another black look. His fingers seemed to steady a little, Jin noticed, the more he smoked. He started when his uncle’s sharp eyes flicked to him. Jin abruptly focussed his attention on his menu.

“Just choose something for him,” Kazuya said impatiently, “we’ll be here all week otherwise.”

“Choose something for him yourself.” Lee’s voice was cold. “You’re the one who wants to get to know him better.”

Jin’s head snapped up. Kazuya had frozen in place. His eyes were daggers, fixed on his brother. His cheeks had darkened curiously and his fingers were stiff where they rested on the table.

Jin found his throat had dried. His breath came a little faster. Could that be true? Could Kazuya really want-…?

A waiter arrived timidly at Kazuya elbow.

“Are you ready to order, sir?”

Kazuya cleared his throat to smooth over the moment.

“Yes. I’ll have the seven-piece sushi meal. For my son: the shojin ryori platter and a green tea. I’ll have another glass of this red. Your finest white for my brother.”

“Teriyaki salmon, please.” Lee’s manners had returned, along with a smug smile as he watched Kazuya’s slightly flustered movements. Jin didn’t compute anything ordered at all because he was still processing that Kazuya had called him his son. That was the second time in two days he’d done that. Jin tried to suppress the fluttering in his stomach and the hope from showing in his eyes.

“I heard that Heihachi shot you in the head at the third Iron Fist Tournament,” Kazuya said casually after the waiter had left. That brought Jin abruptly crashing back to the present. He blinked. His mouth opened slightly. Unbidden memories flashed through his mind. A lot of things had hurt in the last few years, but Heihachi’s betrayal occupied a special place above all others. It had cemented a now permanent paranoia deep inside him. Everywhere he looked, he hunted in expressions for ulterior motives. He expected a gun when he turned his back to a friend. He couldn’t receive things without wondering why. He couldn’t share time and space with another living being without wondering how long this peace would be for.

Jin kept his eyes lowered. He only glanced up when he noticed his uncle’s body language and the way he shifted closer to him. He was glaring at Kazuya again.

“You really had no idea the old man would betray you?” Kazuya continued, as if oblivious to the discomfort at the table. “What, did he manage to paint himself as an angel all the rest of the time you were under his roof?”

“Not an angel…” Jin said quietly, keeping his gaze averted. He tried to push away clenching tightness that was twisting his lungs in knots and making it hard to breathe. He took a slow breath that he hoped looked natural. He gave an attempt at a shrug. “But he was fine. I didn’t know what to expect, but he gave me a home. He never gave me any reason to suspect he wasn’t genuine with his affection.” Jin felt foolish. Maybe he’d just been less clever than the two men at this table not to see this coming. He rolled his shoulders in his stiff new shirt, trying to unwind the tension in his chest.

“A-… affection?” Lee asked, despite his clear attempts to shield Jin from the direction the conversation had taken, “from Heihachi?” His brown eyes were filled with confusion and maybe even something like jealousy. Jin felt the stirrings of guilt.

“I guess… He used to ask after my studies, teach me his karate, always took an interest in me, smiled when I tried to put the past behind me and move on. I really thought he cared…”

There was silence at the table. Jin felt stupid and vulnerable for speaking like this. When he looked up, though, and turned to see his uncle and father’s faces, their expressions were the same disbelieving shock.

“For four years, you got that?” Lee said, and the wistfulness in his voice was so apparent it touched Jin.

“Doesn’t sound like Heihachi at all.” Kazuya got his own cigarette out and lit one for himself.

Lee and Kazuya sat in silence smoking after that. The drinks arrived. Lee and Kazuya simultaneously picked up their wine glasses – Lee’s white, Kazuya’s red – and sipped, then smoked and remained distant and caught in their own dark thoughts.

Jin turned his attention to his tea. It was a good, simple Sencha. Its smell reminded him of home: of soft humid mornings in Yakushima, where the water condensed on the glass of the batted car windows outside, and old rain filled the bamboo gutters running under the roof of the house, and steamed rice cooked on the embers of last night’s fire, stoked anew under his mother’s care.

Jin inhaled those memories and smiled. He drank a cup of the tea, closing his eyes as the warmth spread through his chest and settled peacefully in him. The blistering tension he’d felt earlier slid from him.

Silence reigned at the table until the food arrived. Jin had only vaguely heard what had been ordered for him, but when his meal was set down, he blinked in surprise.

Small mismatched dishes were laid out before him, filled with pickled vegetables and rice and sauces and tofu all made the way he used to eat with his mother. Each dish had been prepared carefully, with an emphasis on simplicity, honesty, and a carefulness, regardless of how grand or humble the ingredient. Seeing that quiet, zen practice here of all places sent a spike of loss straight to Jin’s heart. He blinked repeatedly to try and keep his eyes clear. He didn’t want his uncle and Kazuya to see this. He hadn’t eaten anything like this since before-… He tilted his head away from Kazuya and surreptitiously used the heel of his palm to brush away a tear.

Lee leaned towards him and murmured.

“If you don’t want it, I can have something else brought out that-”

Jin shook his head,

“No… no, it’s perfect. It-…” Jin looked up at Kazuya. The man seemed to be concentrating hard on his own food and avoiding eye contact. “How-… How did you know… ?” Jin asked him.

Another quiet. Kazuya gave a non-committal shrug.

“Didn’t. Just guessed.” Kazuya meticulously selected a curl of sushi and lifted it with his chopsticks. He finally looked at Jin. “It’s what she used to prefer.”

Jin held his gaze. He held it even though he could feel the pearls of tears collect in the corners of his eyes.

“Didn’t meant to be insensitive about it,” Kazuya said roughly, now looking awkward. “Thought it would be familiar. Didn’t realise it might-”

“It’s good. It’s perfect. Thank-you for ordering it.”

Jin leant over his food, using the excuse to wipe his eyes again as he began to eat. Out the corner of his eye, he noticed his father watching. A small, relieved smile found its way onto Kazuya’s face. Jin concentrated on his food, trying not to think about what that might mean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kazuya and Lee arguing from Jin's persepective is fun to write. Hmm. Maybe I should say a little about what this story is intended to be. It's meant to be a series of short scenes focussing on intensity, atmosphere and character relationship. The chapter title is intended to add something to the scene and express some of its feeling. The whole story is written from Jin's perspective, and follows the way he, his uncle, and his father start to change when they take a break from hating each other to try and work together a little.


	8. Bitter

Jin ground his teeth. Afternoon sun slid into his room and lighted on a girl in shorts and a crop top with messy brown hair and mischief in her eyes. Asuka had kicked her shoes off and was sitting cross-legged on his bed, flicking through a pile of comic books his uncle had left him.

“There must be someone you can consult, someone in our family who knows about-”

“No one knows about any dumb ritual, Jin. Look, I’m glad you’ve finally come to your senses and stopped being a tyrannical warlord, but I thought I was being asked here because of my martial arts, not my non-existent knowledge about magic. These comics are sooo old and boring, by the way, and all about robots. Where did you get these? Are you sure they don’t belong in an antique shop?” Asuka stretched, then collapsed back on the bed, swimming her arms through the puff of the duvet. “Ah, so many war crimes, but these Mishimas really know how to spoil a girl.”

“This is _my_ room,” Jin ground out.

“I hope the room I get has a bed this comfy. Look at these pillows!” She rolled over onto her front and fluffed up the pillows. She buried her face in one.

“Do you mind?!”

She laughed and reappeared, hair all askew.

“Not really. Anyway, change your tone, I’m here as a favour to you. No way I’d be caught dead in some evil G-Corp building otherwise.”

“You’re here because you want this devil gene gone, don’t pretend you’re here for me.”

“I can do things for more than one reason.” She sat up and flicked a finger through the things on his bedside cabinet. She selected a lollipop from the copious amount of sweets Lee had left for him. “What kind of sweet is this?” She pulled the paper off and stuffed the sweet in her mouth. “Mmmm! Mishimas have good taste too!”

“Asuka!” Jin said, his patience waning.

She looked up at him, tilting her head.

“Mmhm?” she asked around her lollipop.

“This is important to me. My father said that-”

“You’re calling him father now?”

“Huh?! No!? What-?” Jin blushed furiously, anger piling into his face.

“You just called him father.”

“I did not! You misheard me! Stop arguing and listen to me!”

“Now you’re shouting about it.” She took her lollipop out and pointed it at him. “Because you’re embarrassed. Not cool. You’ve got a cool, brooding image to uphold, Kazama Jin.” Jin took a threatening step towards her. Asuka rolled backward off the bed and came to a stand upright. She raised her fists. “Bring it. Wait until I tell all your friends about how you lost your cool when I-”

“What do you want?” Jin cut through, exasperated.

“Thought you’d never ask.” Asuka bounced back onto the bed and sat cross-legged again. “Okay, first off, a super neat bed like this. With a view out the window and nice breakfasts too.”

“Do you actually know anything about this ritual, because Kazuya’s not going to put you up at G-Corp’s expense if you know nothing about anything.”

“Rude. I know plenty about plenty.” Asuka pulled a face at him. “I may not know about your ritual now, but I know some places I can look and ask. With your help of course.”

“My help?”

“You’re a Kazama, aren’t ya? Or did you forget amidst all this Mishima posh stuff?” Her eyes were just a little sharp. “Like you seemed to forget yourself when you had their corporation and their money and their weapons.” She licked her lollipop. She somehow managed to make the act look threatening.

Jin shifted guiltily. He glanced away.

“Sure. I’ll help.” He diverted the conversation away from his actions as head of the Zaibatsu. “Whatever you need.”

“Sweet!” Asuka said, apparently happy to leave that topic for now. She got up and twirled on the spot. “I also want Mr Mishima to give me a personal tour of this cool skyscraper.”

“It’s full of his evil experiments,” Jin told her.

Asuka laughed. Her laughter faded when Jin’s face stayed serious.

“O-oh.” Her expression wilted. “Maybe the tour can… uh… wait then.”

Jin found himself dragged into trying to help Asuka research the Kazama family over the next few days. He also found himself doing most of the legwork. Asuka would get excited about any new lead they came across, but promptly get bored when she saw how much reading was involved. Jin was required to stay in G Corp Tower for continued blood tests, so Asuka would go out and track down some text she’d heard of in a swift, all-expenses-paid field trip, then bring the text back to Jin and sit and swing her legs in boredom as he poured over the pages.

On this particular occasion, Jin’s temper was wearing thin: the book he was reading looked like it was going to be another dead end, Asuka was practising shadow boxing using his mirror as an opponent, and it had been nearly a week since he’d last seen Kazuya. He was beginning to think maybe he’d imagined that the man wanted him around for anything other than his DNA.

“Will you stop doing that?” He snapped at Asuka. “There’s a gym you can use. Go there.”

Asuka turned and pouted at him.

“I’m helping with the research.”

“You are _not,_ ” Jin said firmly. “I can’t concentrate with you here. And you’re not helping at all, why don’t you-”

A knock sounded on Jin’s door. They both fell silent. Jin’s breath paused in his lungs. He glanced around his room, checking it was neat. He got up and tossed a sock under his bed.

“Hey, you didn’t tidy up for me,” Asuka sulked.

Jin glared at her. He straightened, pulled back his shoulders and opened the door. Lee stood in the doorway in a white pinstripe trousers and waistcoat over a lilac shirt. Jin’s shoulders drooped. Lee’s eyebrows raised.

“Expecting someone else, dear nephew?”

“No…” Jin mumbled. He stood aside and Lee swept in.

“Mr Lee!” Asuka bounced over. She seemed to like his eccentric uncle. “Did you bring more sweets?”

“Ah, young Miss Kazama. No, I’m afraid not this time. How is the research coming on?” Jin glowered at the open book on his bed. Asuka looked a little sheepish. “Hm, I suspected as much.” Lee gave a strained smile, then said to Asuka. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting outside a moment, Miss Kazama, I need a word with Jin.”

Asuka put her bottom lip out.

“Okay, but can I have treats after, Mr Lee? And also, can you show me how you do those sweet high kicks all in a row? I was looking through some old tournament footage and-”

“Later, Asuka.” Lee gave her a charming smile that had a firm note of finality in it. Asuka slunk out the door.

Jin watched as she left. He turned to Lee, with a slight frown. He was beginning to recognise his uncle’s displeased smile from all the rest of his many smiles. Jin folded his arms and averted his eyes.

“Jin,… It’s important we make progress on this research.”

“I’m trying! You think I don’t know that?”

Lee sat down on the edge of the bed. He turned the open book towards him, leafing through a couple of pages.

“It’s been a week. And Kazuya is keen to push on with other methods.”

“He is? What does he want from me? If he needs more blood, I can-”

His uncle gave him a sharp look. Jin fell quiet.

“He has a number of propositions, but all of them are too risky and put your well-being on the line.”

Jin scowled. “You’ve been talking about this without me?”

“Yes, Jin. We have.” Lee’s voice was incisive. It made Jin feel petty and small.

“I’m not a child. I want to be involved in this conversation. Stop leaving me out.”

“You’ve been acting irrationally on this matter. Someone needs to have your best interests at heart. When you ran off here you proved to me that-”

“You can’t just walk into my life and start acting like you care now. Where were you when I lived with Heihachi all those years? You were hiding when it was convenient, and now-”

Jin faltered in that string of accusations. Lee’s face was perfectly blank. It made Jin shiver.

“Do go on,” Lee said with a casual languor that made Jin swallow and rethink.

Jin’s face went from anger to frustration, then to defeat, then to remorse.

“Sorry…” he muttered. “What propositions did my father have? Can you at least tell me?”

“Jin…” Lee’s expression softened. “You aren’t thinking straight when it comes to Kazuya. There are other ways to-”

“Other ways to _what_?!” Jin snapped. He folded his arms again and fixed his uncle with hard stubborn eyes.

Lee sighed. He stood and went to the window. Jin watched him. He was all soft silvers and glowing whites next to the heavy, dark clouds outside. Jin saw his reflection shimmer in the glass next to a thousand small city lights, caught like bright neon fireflies in his flyaway hair. The room seemed darker when Lee had his back to it.

“Kazuya says he wants to see you fight. And he wants to run tests as you fight.”

“That’s fine!” Jin stepped towards his uncle. He wanted to show him he could be strong without him. He wanted to show him he could be independent without causing disasters. He stayed a pace away though, because Lee had that ethereal, regal air to him again, that made Jin hesitate. “Fighting is fine, if that’s what he wants!” Jin insisted. “I’ve been cooped up for days without-”

“He wants to push you to your limits. He wants to see the edge between you and the devil.” Lee’s face was cut in frames of cold light from beyond the window. He was statuesque and aloof.

Jin paused.

“I mean… that makes sense doesn’t it? He needs to do research, so-”

“You need to be careful. We can’t trust him. Above all he wants power. He wants that gene that resides in you. And you need to be very careful about-”

“He could have had it all. He could have killed me and taken it for himself. He could have experimented on me and never even let you in the building.”

“I know that, Jin. But that doesn’t mean he’s safe. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be wary and careful. Being near Kazuya is playing with fire.” The lights of moving traffic outside passed ghost-like over Lee’s face. Jin thought it made his uncle look like he was far away, in another world. “Even when he thinks he loves you, he’s at risk of destroying you.”

Jin’s throat went dry.

Since when did Kazuya…? Could Kazuya really…? Perhaps Lee reading too much into things, Jin hadn’t seen his father in days. And besides, everyone knew that Mishima Kazuya of all people had no space for love in his life. All the same, the room felt a little smaller and darker, and Jin could hear his own breath uncomfortably loudly in his ears. Lee didn’t seem to have noticed Jin’s mental retreat.

“He gets fixated on things and can’t see who might be hurt by his actions,” Lee said. He turned from the window and began to pace Jin’s room. His feet silent were silent on the rich wood panelling of the floor and the tail of his suit flicked slightly each time he turned. His voice picked up a little of that old irritability that discussions about Kazuya could always strain out of him. “He sacrifices anyone and anything for his goals, and can’t see that it’s his own actions that drive people away. Then he has the gall to look around surprised when you’re not at his side anymore… As if anyone could manage to stay by him whilst he’s burning everything in sight...” Lee finished that last sentence in little more than a whisper, and with glance in the mirror, as if he were trying to talk to himself in some other time, at some other place. Jin watched him carefully. Lee turned around and cleared his throat. “Anyway, I know what it is to hope for more from someone. And – don’t look at me like that, there’s no harm in it, or in admitting it either. You just need to be aware of your own vulnerabilities and make sure others don’t take advantage of-”

“Don’t lecture me.” Jin folded his arms again and leaned back against the wall, where the shadows were long.

Lee put his hand to his head. He sighed and his sigh sounded something like _oh, Jin._ Jin scowled at him for good measure.

“Alright,” Lee said softly, then a little louder. “Alright. You want me to tell Kazuya you’ll do the sparring?”  
  


Jin nodded.

Lee lifted his hands in exasperation and turned towards the door. Jin could feel that snaking guilt lurking in his gut again.

“Uncle...”

“I heard you loud and clear.”

“…You’re angry with me…” Jin looked up through his fringe with eyes just edging into wistful and apologetic. Lee looked at him.

“Don’t… pull that face at me,” Lee said, exasperated. “You look so like him…” Jin immediately scowled instead. “That doesn’t help either…”

“Who will I be fighting?” Jin was tired of people comparing him to Kazuya.

“That’s for Kazuya decide, since apparently we’re letting _him_ make every decision that matters in your life.”

Jin huffed and put his lip out.

“I don’t care who I fight anyway. I can take anyone in this tower. Even you. Even Kazuya.”

“Yes, you’re quite invincible.” Lee was swift and curt, and his irritability finally wore through. “And you’ve made quite clear that you want no advice or help, so there’s certainly no reason for me to linger. I have a company to run and it already takes far too much time out of my schedule to come here and tell you everything you apparently don’t need to hear. If you can’t get that research complete before Kazuya gives up waiting and takes that gene from you, then I hope your invincibility can extend to defeating him with the full power of that devil behind him. Good evening.”

Lee swept out the bedroom.

Jin stood still after the door had shut behind him. He kicked the corner of a clothes chest, then hissed between his teeth when his toes hurt. He caught sight of the open book Asuka had brought on his bed. He grabbed it and sat down at a desk, flicked on a lamp and began pouring over the pages with renewed effort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something was missing from this chapter, which is why it's a little later than normal. It's better now. Not much Asuka yet, but you at least get to meet her, and her 'helping'. I can't imagine her volunteering for academic endeavours. Cheers for the reviews and comments! Next chapter will be Jin sparring.


	9. Ink

Jin stood in his gi bottoms and a comfortable hoodie, feeling very underdressed. He stayed quiet and still beside his father. Kazuya was in a smart suit, flicking through a clipboard and comparing notes to a screen before him.

“See this?” Kazuya motioned to two images on the screen. There had been pictures in a biology textbook at school of cells under a microscope, so Jin had a vaguely inkling of what he was looking at, but not much more. He nodded, hoping Kazuya wasn’t expecting some great depth of understanding from him. “This, along with the bloodwork I have here, confirms that the genetic mutagens inside you follow the same replication patterns as my own. Yours are younger – and I don’t just mean relatively – taking into account the age difference as well, yours are much less developed than mine.”

Jin paused, then volunteered,

“I think the… curse,” he wasn’t sure what else to call it, even if it didn’t sound very scientific, “came to me when I was fifteen. That’s when I got my tattoo.”

Kazuya looked up from his clipboard.

“May I see it?”

Jin hesitated then unzipped his hoodie and shrugged it to the floor. Stained dark onto his bicep was the curling black curse mark. Kazuya reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of glasses. They softened his appearance and gave him an intellectual air that startled Jin into further silence. Kazuya leaned forwards, he brought a hand up as though to touch the mark. Jin’s gut contracted in warning and he held his breath as he tried not to flinch. Kazuya looked at him, then let his hand fall back to his side before it touched Jin.

“I have no such marking, but you’re right that it resembles the marks that take over you in your devil form. It’s also curious to me that your skin does not change colour, and that your personality drastically alters.”

Something crumbled inside Jin. His personality altered? What had he said and done to people who cared for him whilst that beast controlled him?

“My… my personality?”

“Yes, this devil version of you seems explosive, chaotic, like it’s just torn through a barrier and seized its own freedom. It’s much more violent and demanding in its expression. Far more amusing, in my opinion, though a little crass in its bloodthirsty demands. I even have someone on record claiming you intended to eat them.”

“I-… what?” A crawling abhorrence was slithering over Jin’s skin and making his hair stand on end. “Is… is my devil is more violent even than yours?”

“Yes, most definitely. Perhaps it has something to do with how opposing your personalities are, that your devil comes out more fiery and uncontrollable.”

Jin’s face twisted into concern.

“Can you make it controllable? Can you make it leave?”

“That is what I’ve been trying to do.” Kazuya looked over his glasses at him.

“I don’t want to give it what it wants. I don’t want to hurt people anymore. I hurt Uncle Lee back at Violet Systems. I didn’t mean to. I don’t even remember doing it.” Jin’s lip quivered.

Kazuya’s brow creased, perhaps in recollection.

Jin straightened his shoulders, aware he’d unloaded more than he meant to just then.

“What I mean is… I’ve felt more in control since you made me wear these.” Jin touched the metal cuffs on his wrists. “If I have to take them off to fight-…”

“I will have the training room surrounded by G-Corp guards. And I will be watching the entire thing myself. If there looks like there’s going to be trouble, I’ll have the sparring practice put to an end. But it is going to be necessary to take those off.”

  
  
Jin hesitated again, thinking of the argument he’d had with Lee.

“This is important for your research, right?”

Kazuya fixed him with dark eyes, flecked with impatience. Jin felt that spark of fear again, like a reminder that a wild animal was before him. He chewed lip. He grabbed his hoodie and backed away.

“One last thing,” Kazuya said, apparently calm again. Jin still jumped. Kazuya gestured to him. “Your wrists.”

Jin returned and reluctantly offered his hands up to Kazuya. The cuffs seemed smooth and seamless to Jin, and a small part of him was hoping maybe it would be too complicated to take them off. Kazuya laid a card flat against them though, and they beeped once, fell open, and dropped to the floor with a _clink_.

Jin felt something stir inside him. He felt alert and awake for the first time since he’d arrived here. He could feel energy bunching in his muscles, raring to go. Excitement pulsed in his veins. He had enough savvy to be concerned by this change. He looked at Kazuya with eyes that said as much.

“I’ll stop you myself if necessary,” Kazuya said, answering his unasked question.

Jin calmed a little. He didn’t have to trust Kazuya in order to feel more confident, he just needed to trust his capability as a martial artist. After his mother and Heihachi, Jin was sure Kazuya was the one best placed to stop him if it came to it. And given that everyone else was dead…

Jin nodded, and bowed slightly. He left the room and strode down to the training hall. Still, he thought, as he pushed open a set of heavy double doors, he hoped caging the prowling part of his subconscious hadn’t been a mistake. He could feel his blood roaring in his veins. If Kazuya had him sparring with some G Corp grunt, he wasn’t sure how much he could hold back.

The doors opened onto a large sparring hall, with panelled windows over to the left from which Kazuya looked down on him.

“And I still can’t dissuade you?”

Jin automatically frowned at the sound of that voice, he whirled around but baulked at what he saw. His uncle had forgone his usually florid suits and was now in a tank top and training trousers. Relief bloomed in Jin’s chest. Before he could stop himself, he leaned forward to inspect the unusual attire.

“Uncle Lee,… is that tank top made of… fishnet?”

His uncle flipped his hair with a hand.

“Isn’t it excellent? I used to have one just like this when I was in my twenties, but Kazuya raided my wardrobe and threw it out.” He gave a wave to the observation window. Kazuya folded his arms and scowled.

“So… I’m going to fight you?” Jin asked. He’d seen Lee fight in tournaments before, though had never had a chance to spar with him.

“Yes, time for round two. This time though, I’ll keep my wits about me and my laboratory equipment well away.” He winked.

Jin’s heart fell. His expression must have shown as much, because the playfulness snapped off his uncle’s face. He took Jin by the shoulder.

“I’ve got you. When I knew you had your heart set on sparring, I went and insisted to Kazuya that I’d be your partner. You can trust me, alright? Between Kazuya and I, everything’s going to be under control. We don’t have to do this though. Say the word, and I’ll go and explain it to him. Just because he asked you to-”

Jin gave a strained smile and cut through his uncle.

“Let’s do this.”

Jin raised gloved fists. His uncle gave an elegant bow. Jin hesitated, then lowered his fists and returned the bow. He raised his guard again. He was very conscious of the eyes on him from the observation window. This felt much more personal than a tournament. In those, only winning had mattered. He hadn’t cared what anyone thought of him, he’d just had a single purpose in mind. Now though… he didn’t want to look stupid in front of his uncle or Kazuya.

“Relax,” Lee said to him. Lee had already taken a high stance and was bouncing back and forth, hands loose in a deceptively low guard before him.

Jin only frowned in response and his gaze became sharper. His uncle moved first, bouncing a light head kick off his front foot. Jin blocked it, but Lee snapped his foot back before Jin could grab at it or off-balance him. Lee’s next kick came so fast Jin didn’t see it coming. A full-power roundhouse kick off his back foot caught Jin squarely in the side. He staggered and Lee completed his rotation, bringing a second kick spinning round with his next foot. Jin blinked and his reactions leapt in before he could think. His stance softened he met the second kick with two raised forearms and tugged Lee’s leg towards him, ducking and rolling beneath the kick as Lee went flying off with all his own momentum behind him.

“Kazama Ryu. Thought you put that behind you, Jin,” Lee said as he picked himself up off the floor, breathing a little faster.

Jin was already back on his feet. He threw a punch that Lee blocked easily, then snapped an axe kick high above Lee’s head and brought it crashing down. Lee darted back and Jin missed, instead taking the ground before him and pushing his uncle back.

As they returned a few lighter punches back and forth, Jin saw the shadows of the Mishima Ryu lingering in Lee’s movements, much like they did his own. Jin was determined not to let that style come out at all in this fight, not whilst Kazuya was watching. Jin wanted nothing to do with the Mishima style.

Jin watched the way Lee moved and tried to find the patterns in his lightning fast attacks. Jin kept his guard close and defensive, only reacting to counter with a few solid punches whenever Lee over-stretched. Unlike most opponents Jin had faced, Lee didn’t seem to take the upper hand Jin gave him as a victory. The number of times Jin had baited Hwoarang into a state of bravado before snapping into the gap his ego left in his defence… but nothing like that showed in his uncle’s style. Lee was too seasoned to be impatient, too sure of himself to need false confidence, too careful even around someone with decades less experience. Jin was going to need to make his own openings.

He took apart this puzzle in his mind, watching for his moment. He threw a jab cross, then came in with a flying knee, Lee moved to block it, and Jin threw himself forward into a roll, flinging his back leg out in a diving round house kick. He caught Lee in the head with all his bodyweight behind the kick. They both fell to the ground, but Jin bounced back up easily. He aimed a kick whilst his uncle was on the ground, but Lee rolled out the way and stood. He nodded as he put some distance between them. Jin’s chest swelled with pride and a small smile touched his face at the acknowledgement.

Jin raised his guard again and this time came in more confidently. He threw another couple of hard punches, then raised his knee in chamber, he waited for Lee to flinch in one direction before snapping it high in a downwards round house kick that crashed through Lee’s body. Lee grunted as he took the force of it and went down on one knee. Another thrill went through Jin, before he realised his mistake. The show of weakness had distracted him from his footwork – Lee stayed low and swept him, bringing him tumbling down. Lee sprang up and cartwheeled a kick that brought his heel down onto the fallen Jin. Then his kicks came as a continual barrage. It was all Jin could do to try and regain his footing and stagger back as he fended those off. Just when he thought he’d staved off the last of them, Lee dropped his weight lower and rose back up with two driving fists. Jin recognised the move from his training with Heihachi and pulled his guard back in. He dropped low himself and swept Lee’s feet out from under him and caught him with an uppercut before he fell.

They were both firmly using Mishima Ryu now and some kind of understanding had come between them that this was a thing that was happening. It made sense to Jin that his uncle had trained the family style, but for some reason it had never truly crossed his mind that Lee might know it, or that he might have deliberately abandoned it like Jin had. His moves were rustier than Jin’s, but Jin could still see it all before him, like a lithe shadow of Heihachi moving through motions that somehow still looked second nature to Lee in a way they never had to Jin. This was Lee’s first style. This was what lay underneath all the rest of his training, much like his mother’s style did for Jin.

Jin dodged a triple spin kick that he hadn’t seen in the flesh since he first watched Kazuya fighting in the fourth tournament. He could feel his blood pulsing now with something electric. Sparks snapped through the uppercut he replied with, and he swung his fists in an arc about him, aiming to backfist Lee in the face. A fierce look of recognition entered Lee’s eye and Jin could see his movements were read like a book. Before his back fist had connected, Lee interrupted it with one of Heihachi’s counters, perfectly timed and executed, and setting him up for a string of powerful follow-up attacks. Jin faltered under the onslaught. He could feel himself going down. For some reason, no-matter what he did now, Lee was reading it. Even when he threw in Kyokushin or Kazama moves, Lee had already anticipated, and punished everything he tried to launch.

Jin could feel himself growing frustrated. There were bruises up his arms from all the attacks he’d had to block and he could feel his head ringing from a glancing blow that had landed earlier. He thought of Kazuya watching this, and refused to cede to his uncle. He needed this. He needed to prove himself. If he could just have a little more, if he could just borrow a little strength to-

A familiar prickle rippled up his arms. His chest flickered with ancient shadows of ink. Panic seized him and his eyes widened. He saw Lee instantly read his fear and his attacks stopped.

_Uncle Lee!_ Jin tried to cry out, but his words merely came out a low growl. His guard raised on its own. He saw Lee’s rise in a wary mirror of his own.

Jin could feel himself receding, and a towering anger and strength built through his bones. He felt lighter and Lee looked somehow smaller. He looked down and the ground was some distance below his dangling, clawed feet. His fingers had become talons where his gloves ended. His heartbeat was pulsating, his vision was throbbing red. The sparring hall looked smaller beneath him. He was looking down from up the air. Lee was backing away, guard still raised. He was aware of rushed footsteps and the doors being thrown open. He vaguely registered Kazuya bursting into the hall, tearing his jacket off and snapping something at Lee. Lee circled around until he was behind Kazuya. The brothers spoke together for a brief moment, then Kazuya shifted. His skin flushed a purplish hue and terrible wings tore through his shirt. Jin felt his blood course with fury and his eyes filmed over with rage. The next time he could make anything out through the hazy red, a Kazuya-like demonic thing was before him, staring him down. Three red eyes fixed on him. The face in front of him was ridged with scales and swept back horns. Only the scar crossing its cheeks reminded Jin who this was.

“Be still.” It was Kazuya’s voice that spoke to him through the demonic features, though it resonated inside his very skull. A finger pressed to his forehead. Jin heard himself scream. Flashing images cartwheeled through his mind and his world slid into a black hole full of nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hm this fight scene is based on when a mate of mine always beats up my Kazuya with Heihachi. It was surprisingly relevant for this Jin vs Lee fight, so I just rolled with it. And no, our Jin lad is not ok. Next week we have some softer family moments and more Asuka.
> 
> Also, for those who don't already know, I have some Tekken short stories collected under the title 'Iron Fist and Iron Will', and updated it with a new one this week :)


	10. Infernal

When Jin woke up, it was to another room he didn’t recognise. This was becoming something of a recurrence in his life. He blinked awake slowly. He was in a spacious bedroom, with a window view that implied he was still in G-Corp. There were tell-tale signs of Lee Chaolan about the place though – a coffee machine bubbling in the corner, a faux fur white throw draped over a lilac cotton duvet that was soft and downy to the touch. The only thing that stood out was a dressing gown in more reserved colours, presumably to tempt him into wearing it.

He noticed with a start that he was clinging to something. With a sleepy, dawning horror, he realised that it was not a something, but a someone. He had curled himself around an arm and clutched it to his chest. Next to him on the bed sat Lee, flicking through a data pad one-handed, a pair of purple rimmed spectacles on his nose. Jin released the arm quickly and shuffled away. A burning embarrassment crawled up his face.

Lee kept reading his data pad, and Jin wondered if it was in an effort to give him his dignity back. Jin propped himself up on the pillows and cleared his throat a little awkwardly.

“You and Kazuya both wear glasses?”

Lee had the class to pass straight over Jin’s embarrassment.

“I’ve always worn glasses. Kazuya’s the one crowding my style.”

Jin gave a weak smile and took a deep breath.

“What… uh… what happened to me?” The last thing he recalled was three burning eyes looking straight at him, and the world going to darkness.

“You transformed into that devil form. Kazuya took care of it the only way he knew how. By overpowering your mind with something terrible that he apparently can’t explain to me. You’ve been out since yesterday.”

Jin could hear strained things in his uncle’s voice. He pushed his fringe out of his eyes. Jin realised his hair was wet. His whole body was cover in a thin film of cooling sweat.

“Since… yesterday?” Jin asked.

“You were troubled in your sleep. Nightmares, or something Kazuya did to you.” Lee had that levelness to his voice that Jin knew now to be anger. He was getting better at reading his uncle. “I was unwilling to leave you alone in that state.” Lee tapped the data pad and it dimmed. “I’ll give you your space now. I’ve moved into G-Corp Tower for the present and had you moved to a room next to mine. There’s an en suite shower on the left, you should find everything you need.” He made to move.

“Wait.” Jin saw his uncle hesitate. There was uncertainty in his movements, Jin realised. He wondered just then if perhaps everyone Heihachi had raised was unsure of the right way to be close to people. “Thank-you,” Jin said. He rested his forehead against his uncle’s shoulder. An invisible tension sagged out of Lee’s posture and he relaxed.

There was a long quiet. Jin could hear the bleat of Tokyo traffic beyond the window and the murmuring spatter of grey rain against the glass. When Lee spoke again, his voice was soft.

“You were right to be angry with me before. You were right to ask where I was, and why I never helped you. I was hiding. I was afraid. The first I knew of your existence was after you’d been at the Mishima Estate for a month. I still had people I could get information from, and when I first heard them talking, I thought somehow Kazuya was back from the dead. I moved as quickly as I could to hack cameras at the estate and see for myself. When I saw you, I knew who you were. But I also saw how my father was with you. He was different from the Heihachi I remembered. I told myself: perhaps he’s changed, perhaps I should give him a chance. I told myself, if he ever hurt you, I’d intervene. I told myself many things, but the truth is that I didn’t want to confront him. It had been fifteen years since he told me he’d kill me if I ever set foot in Japan again, and I still feared that threat. I knew it was a matter of time before he turned on you. I knew he would use you for whatever ends he had in mind, and then discard you. But I thought I had more time. I thought I still had time to swoop in and be a saviour. It all happened so fast. I thought there was a way I could make myself known to you without risking a confrontation with him. In the end, it’s as Kazuya always said it was. I’m good at looking after myself and no one else.”

Jin wasn’t sure what to say. He pressed his head into Lee’s shoulder a little more. That gesture seemed to do what his words could not.

“Alright,” Lee said, and his brightness had returned. “Coffee? I think I saw some biscuits too. I told Kazuya if this place wasn’t up to five star quality that I’d drive you back to Violet Systems instantly.” He laughed but Jin heard the edge of self-consciousness in it. Lee swung his legs over the side of the bed and stepped spritely over to the coffee maker. He poured a cup and paused with a second empty cup in his hand, looking to Jin. His silver hair and sharp suit were immaculate, but Jin could see sleepless rings under his eyes.

“Yes, please,” Jin said. He didn’t really drink coffee, but it was difficult saying no to Lee Chaolan. He received the warm cup into his waiting hands. The gesture took him back to times when he’d been ill and his mother would press hot drinks into his hands whilst he sat in bed with the blankets drawn up to his nose. Jin looked up at his uncle. “Sorry I lost control, yesterday. I know you told me to be careful, and I know I-”

“Yesterday was Kazuya’s fault, not yours,” Lee said sharply. His brown eyes softened again. “Now, drink your coffee, take a shower, have a biscuit. My room is next door, so come knock when you’re done.” Jin opened his mouth, not done talking about their fight yesterday. Lee clipped his chin with a light finger. “Stop with all that concern and go look after yourself. Everything else can wait.”

Jin warmed to the familiarity and nodded slowly in agreement.

He did feel much better after the coffee and a hot shower. He even had one of the biscuits, though it mostly served to remind him how hungry he was. He spiked up his hair and dressed in clothes his uncle had left out for him. He checked his reflection again. An acrid burning sensation suddenly hit the back of his mouth and nearly made him wretch. His vision faded to monochrome and all colour sunk into ashen shadows. The world darkened further until only the mirror was before him – a window of unearthly light. Three red eyes stared out from the mirror. He could smell the crackle of charcoal mixed with burning plastic and woodsmoke as his home burned around him. Voices all dissonant and distorted crowded his head with whispers.

A second later, everything faded. Colour and light returned. He found himself clutching the sink and bending over it, breathing hard. Only the imprint of those three red eyes stayed pressed into his recent memory, like he’d stared too long at the sun and now saw it when he closed his eyes.

He touched his forehead, trying to collect his breath. He had seen things like this before in Hon-Maru when he’d been chained up. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but when he’d opened his eyes then, he’d seen his father before him with head bowed as if in some mental struggle. Jin took a step back. He chewed his lip, wondering if he should say something to his uncle. Lee had done so much for him recently. He wanted to show him he could be strong and independent on his own.

Jin double-checked his appearance then made his way to his uncle’s room and knocked on the door, doing his best to look professional and collected, and not like he’d just spent a feverish day curled up like some child with a nightmare.

The door flew open and Asuka bounced out. She grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him in.

“Mr Lee is taking us out!” She beamed at him. Jin tugged his hand free and scowled. Lee appeared in a long jacket embroidered with silver thread and a pair of mirror back glasses that Jin knew were hiding at least one night of lost sleep.

“Indeed!” he said enthusiastically, he threw a finger out dramatically, “and for the rest of the day I’m going to be talking English because Miss Kazama here has an exam at school next week that she’s neglected to revise for.”

“Aw, Mr Lee, come on.” Asuka pouted. Jin’s frown deepened. His English wasn’t fantastic either.

“What do you mean ‘going out’?” Jin was sullen.

“First, we’re going shopping for you, dear nephew.” Lee explained, in English Jin could only just follow. “Some outfits of your own choosing, and at least one suit.”

“Bo-oring,” Asuka folded her arms and blew hair out of her face. “I want to do cool stuff. Let’s check out the local dojos and see if trendy Tokyo types know how to fight as well as jack up sushi prices!”

“You can have a new outfit too, Miss Kazama.” Lee smiled.

“What do I want new clothes for? You saying mine aren’t nice?”

“No, no, no,” Lee raised his hands, “nothing like that. New clothes just for fun! Don’t you ever just want to go shopping sometimes and try on something beautiful?”

“Huh?” Asuka pulled a face at him.

Jin put a hand to his head.

“Uncle Lee…”

“Don’t ‘Uncle Lee’ me, Jin. You’ve both been stuck in this dull genetics company tower for too long. Today we’re going to have some family fun. I’ll show you Kazamas how it’s done. It’s going to be excellent!” He gave them a thumbs up.

Devil genes and red eyes and blood tests remained out of Jin’s head all morning as he was reluctantly towed around Tokyo malls.

Jin huffed impatiently as a tailor finished up taking his measurements. The suit Lee had suggested didn’t look very Kazama Jin. It looked like it belonged on Mishima Kazuya. Lee fussed with his collar and pushed his chin up so that he stood prouder.

“It’s very…” Jin searched for the word.

“Smart!” supplied Lee.

“Formal,” Jin finished. He looked down at the charcoal grey suit with its faint flashes of silver pinstripes.

“It’s good. You look like a businessman.”

Jin looked down at himself again.

“I do?”

“Yeah, boring like a businessman,” Asuka put in. Lee frowned at her. She blew hair out of her face.

“Do you want to get measured to Asuka? What would you like? There are some beautiful dresses here.” Lee indicated to a line of manakins modelling flowing skirts and tight corsets and floating sleeves and lace hems.

“Sure, I’ll get measured.” Asuka put her hands on her hips. “For that same suit Jin’s getting. I want a matching one. And I’m going to wear it with one of those hats – those American hats that gangsters wear.”

“A trilby?” Lee supplied.

“Yeah. And with shades like yours.”

Lee raised an eyebrow.

“Very well.”

Jin looked aghast at them both.

“She can’t get the same suit as me!”

“Afraid I’ll pull it off better than you, Jin?”

Jin narrowed his eyes and pulled a face at Asuka. She stuck her tongue back out at him.

Lee laughed. “It’ll look cute you both in matching outfits! We’ll measure Asuka for it next.”

Jin did have to reluctantly admit that Asuka pulled off the suit just as well, if not better. When she borrowed a hat and Lee’s sunglasses, she looked like she’d walked straight off a movie set.

“Nice. Sharp,” Lee told her.

“Oh hell, yeah.” Asuka spun on the spot, blazer fanning out and slapping the tailor in the face. She clacked the shining black shoes on her feet in a small dance. She glanced at her reflection. “I look proper Yakuza.” The tailor paled.

Lee’s smiled thinned.

“Not an idle word to throw around, Miss Kazama,” he chided.

“I keep the peace between half a dozen street gangs in Osaka,” she said, shrugging as she did, “I’m allowed to mock what I can beat up. Anyway, aren’t you and your big brother the real organised criminals in Japan?”

Lee brought his hand to his lips and gave a cough. Jin couldn’t help but snigger at Lee’s embarrassment, though he covered it up when his uncle shot him an unimpressed look.

“Violet Systems is an entirely legitimate business, my dear girl.”

“Yeah? And Mr Mishima?”

“Kazuya… has never had a problem with the law,” Lee said carefully.

Asuka slapped her thighs in laughter and several pins fell to the ground. The tailor clicked his tongue in annoyance and bent to pick them up.

“Is that because he’s got the government running too scared to stop him.”

Lee frowned and opened his mouth, but Jin surprised himself by getting there first.

“Asuka, we are guests of G-Corp. It’s not appropriate to discuss such things whilst receiving their hospitality.”

Jin could see Lee’s eyebrows climbing into his hair line. Asuka pulled another face at him.

“You’ve just got daddy issues, Jin. You’re pouty all day long because you can’t work out if you want to kill your old man or give him a big, soppy ol’ hug.”

Lee had to separate them and escort them out the shop, apologising to the tailor.

“Really,” he scolded them lightly once they were in the wintery bright street once more.

“He’s just sore that I hit the truth,” Asuka huffed, her breath puffing out as a misty cold cloud. She wiped a spot of blood from her lip where Jin had caught her with a punch.

“You’re not even worth my anger,” Jin said to her coolly. She’d very much hit the mark and he was seething that someone like Asuka had read him so easily. She’d also clouted him in the side of the face with a solid backfist and now he had a headache coming on.

“Now, now, children, play nicely.” Lee’s eye twinkled as both Kazamas scowled at him.

After that they had lunch. Lee wanted to take them to a fancy restaurant, but Asuka managed to persuade him to take them instead to a street food bar. They sat on tall stools with only a half curtain between them and the bitter wind, and the grill sputtering with hot grease before them. They nursed their numbing fingers whilst eating takoyaki and steaming udon noodles. Jin and Asuka laughed at Lee, who grumbled that he couldn’t understand why someone would choose to sit out in the cold when they could have the luxury of a Michelin star restaurant. After that they were back out again, this time searching for some casual wear for Jin. Jin was feeling pleasantly full, his cheeks were red from the chill wind, and he didn’t even object much as he trailed behind his uncle, wandering into different shops and looking at all the bright window displays.

Half an hour later he was trying on a number of clothes he’d selected.

“Jin, are you sure you only want to try on those clothes,… they’re all so… black.”

Jin scowled at his uncle. He saw Asuka lean over to Lee and whisper to him, a flash of something hideously emerald and glittery exchanged hands.

“Don’t even think about it,” Jin growled, as his uncle tried to slip a sequin spangled waistcoat into the pile Jin was taking into the changing rooms. Asuka tittered whilst Lee pulled a hurt expression.

“But, Jin, seriously, what do you think about this? I think white could be very you.” Lee held up a heavy jacket, all white with red crawl up one arm.

“The red is kind of like flames, isn’t that basically your only style, Jin?” Asuka put in.

“I thought you hated shopping.” Jin glared at Asuka.

“I take it back. Watching you scowling at clothes is amazing. I love shopping. I love how miffed you look. It’s perfect. This is my new best hobby. It’s excellent.” She put her thumb up in a mimic of Lee.

Jin’s eyes lidded. He snatched the white jacket from Lee and took the pile of clothes into the changing room and pulled the curtain across behind him. The welcome privacy was broken only by the continued sound of Lee and Asuka still exchanging snatches of laughter. He’d thought this trip stupid when Lee first suggested it, and the idea of shopping sounded like another of his uncle’s vanity affairs. The different pace of the day had felt good though, and the clothes did make him feel more at home and more himself. For the first time since he’d woken up in Lee’s lab, he felt more sure of himself. He even rather liked that white jacket his uncle had suggested. It was different – sort of suave but still casual. He admired his reflection, turning on the spot. The red on his jacket faded. All colour leeched from the world, like a plug had been pulled from it. He could feel it – that sensation like the physical world was circling a drain and dropping away from him. A familiar choking, burning sensation filled his mouth and the taste of brimstone was on his tongue, thick and nauseating. The mirror walls around him suddenly lit up. The rest of the room darkened. Rows of red eyes stared out at him from the mirrors. They sat haphazard on a canvass of black, like grotesque ornaments in a museum. Their slit pupils fixed him so that he couldn’t move. A soft whisper hung on the air.  
  
 _Kazama Jin.  
  
_ Its voice was thin and papery and caught up with echoes, as if he were being called from down a long tunnel. The red eyes blinked slowly, all at random, following him as he tried to shake his vision clear. _Don’t!_ Jin tried to cry out. He couldn’t hear his own voice. Instead, a deep laughter rippled through the hallway of his thoughts. The voice began to whisper of old hatreds and ancient curses.   
  
_Give in to anger. Hate me. Curse me._  
  


The eyes around him nudged him towards a precipice of darkness. He felt his feet stumbling towards a place he knew he should not go to. An edge. The eyes blinked at him again. The myriad pupils pinned him in place.

Jin reeled back into reality. He slammed his palm against a mirror to steady himself. Cracks splinted under his hand and black lines split up his reflection. Beads of blood smeared across the cracked glass. He set his teeth together and held his head. He bent over, breathing hard.

When he’d taken a moment, he dragged aside the curtain and stalked out.

“That jacket is great!” Asuka exclaimed.

“I’m leaving,” Jin grated. He realised that the restraints Kazuya had given him were not on his wrists. A faint panic rose within him. “This was a mistake. We shouldn’t have come here.”

Lee’s face fell.

“Jin, what is it? What’s wrong? A moment ago you-”

“I said I’m leaving,” Jin snapped. “Take me back to G-Corp.”

“Whatever it is, we can work it out,” Lee said gently. “Talk to us. What’s bothering you? You don’t like the clothes?”

“It’s not safe for me to be here. It’s not safe for anyone.”

“You need to get out of those laboratories sometimes,” Lee reasoned. “You can’t hide yourself away indefinitely. We will find a way to fix this, but you also need to keep living and keep sane. It’s not good only to be surrounded by scientists and people that see you as a test subject-”

“I’ve had enough of your organised fun!” Jin’s temper simmered. He could feel the curl of demonic tattoos writing themselves onto his skin. His canines were starting to ache and feel large in his mouth, and his nails felt that bit longer and sharper as they curled into his palm. The smoky flavour of demonic intention touched his tongue with a tempting taste.

“Listen to reason,” Lee said. “Don’t shut yourself up-”

“Take me back to G-Corp!”

“Listen to me for once, Kaz!”

Silence fell. Asuka’s eyebrows raised. Lee passed a tongue over his lip and pushed his hair behind his ear. Jin was all black scowl.

“Jin, I mean.” Lee corrected, far too long after the long, stiff quiet that had dropped between them.

Lee took all the clothes off Jin in silence and bought them all anyway. He drove Asuka and Jin back to G-Corp after that. Asuka drummed her fingers on the windows as the car purred down the Tokyo streets. Jin could tell she was agitated, but he just pulled his hood up and folded his arms.

When they got back to G-Corp Tower, Jin shut himself in his room and sat on his bed. He buried his face in his hands. He sat until light left the sky and his room filled with long shadows, and the neon stars of the city at night winked on.

A knock sounded on his door. He ignored it. There was a beep of a lock being disengaged anyway and the door opened. Jin’s teeth clenched at the invasion of privacy.

“Chaolan thought you might want these back.” Jin jumped up and whirled round at his father’s voice. Kazuya stood, offering him the steel restraints. “And I assume these are for you too.” Kazuya stepped into the room and indicated to a line of designer paper bags all neatly sitting in a row just beyond the doorway.

A twinge of guilt turned inside Jin. He offered up his hands to his father. Kazuya clicked the steel cuffs onto his wrists.

“I keep hearing you in my head.” Jin said dully as a wash of familiar lethargy swept through his body as soon as the cold metal closed on him.

“Hm?” Kazuya looked up.

“You, laughing like a maniac. With red eyes everywhere.”

“Oh…” Kazuya took this rather nonchalantly. “Devil’s been a bit restless recently. Very keen to rip what remains of himself out of you. And to subdue you yesterday I had to call on some rather heavy-handed methods.”

Jin glared at him. “You said you had everything under control. You said it would be safe for me to fight.”

Kazuya’s eyebrows raised.

“I did keep everything under control. I kept both you and Chaolan safe. What more did you expect?” Jin hugged himself and stared hard at the floor. Kazuya went over to the coffee machine in Jin’s room and began spooning grounds into it. “This any good?” Kazuya asked, “Chaolan made me buy a few these. One in his room too. That cousin of yours asked for an arcade machine. In her _bedroom_. I’ll never understand Kazamas.”

“Is this all some joke to you?”

Kazuya’s hands paused. He turned around slowly. All Jin’s nerves flared with warning. Kazuya stepped up into his space until he was almost nose to nose with him. Jin held his gaze defiantly. The coffee machine began to bubble as it dribbled coffee into a cup.

Jin set his father with challenge in his eyes.

“I could have killed someone today,” Jin said softly, “and all I can hear in my head is you calling to me about hatred and darkness and tempting me to something-… I don’t even know what. Are you even _trying_ to help me?”

One of Kazuya’s eyes glowed red. His lip twitched. All Jin’s instincts screamed at him to put distance between them. He stubbornly held his ground.

“You don’t think I’m trying?” Kazuya’s voice was quiet, but all threat.

“I don’t know what you’re doing! I’ve barely seen you in the last two weeks and now I get these nightmares that-”

“The nightmares are Devil, not me. I’m getting it under control, just like I did when I saved you from him at Hon Maru.”

“You never did any such-!”

“As for what I’ve been doing for the last two weeks. Barely sleeping is the answer. Whilst trying to work on a method for extracting your devil gene, and simultaneously digging up what I can on the Kazama ritual. But sure, I’ve done nothing. I’m not even trying. You carried _yourself_ up from the sparring hall to this room yesterday. The work’s all been on your end and I’m just a devil CEO of an evil corporation.”

Jin bit his lip. He dropped his gaze from Kazuya’s.

Kazuya turned away. He picked up the coffee and switched off the machine. He sipped at it. He grunted and took it with him as he went to the door.

“Wait,” Jin called after him. Kazuya didn’t wait. He opened the door and strode off. Jin ran to the door and jumped over the neat line of clothes in folded paper bags. “Father, wait. I’m sorry.”

Kazuya froze in his footsteps. Jin saw his shoulders tense, coffee paused part way to his mouth.

Jin’s heart beat so loud that he found himself breathing in time to it.

Kazuya sipped his coffee then walked on up the corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of Thalie's Lee headcanons in this chapter, including Heihachi exiling Lee from Japan after the second tournament.. You can read their fic ['Lee Chaolan's (more or less) excellent life in the Mishima family'](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12725133/1/Lee-Chaolan-s-more-or-less-excellent-life-in-the-Mishima-family) on fanfiction.net   
> Asuka and her misadventures are very much inspired by running around Kamurocho for the last few weeks as I played Yakuza 1 and 0.  
> Lee clothes shopping is basically my mother.   
> Sorry the chapter is late and I hope you all keep safe and healthy! Now's a good time to read and write all the fanfiction you want!


	11. Dust

Lee wasn’t in his room. Jin sighed. A grey window beside him showed a cold morning, bleak sky, and glass was streaked with rain. Jin meandered down G-Corp corridors. He was sullen and sulking and mostly filled with guilt. He’d been afraid of himself yesterday for the first time since arriving in G-Corp. Despite all his promises to himself about never trusting others, he realised he’d placed a trust in his uncle and father. He’d trusted that under their watch that that devil part of him would be kept under lock and key. He’d let himself unwind into a slower pace of life, let himself be taken care of by his uncle, and let himself dream of getting to know his father. At the first sign that his condition was less stable than he’d thought, he’d lashed out at people who were only trying to help him.

He really had been enjoying that time with Lee and Asuka before he’d blown it. He still didn’t care for shopping, but it had been something different, spending time just the three of them. It had felt easy. It had felt normal.

But those eyes. And Kazuya’s voice in his head, _whispering._ Anger came so much easier to Jin these days than he ever remembered it doing in his early life.

Jin paused. He’d walked with his temper so far that he wasn’t entirely sure where he was. The floor had turned from parquet to tile. Closed doors were all about him. He’d come to the end of a corridor with an elevator in front of him. He punched the controls, and a few moments later it rolled open. The options for floors to choose were so numerous that buttons stretched nearly from floor to ceiling. Jin stared at them all. He wasn’t really aiming for anywhere in particular. He hit the very top floor.

“ _Access restricted. Swipe clearance card.”_

An automated voice came over the tannoy. Jin instead pushed the button for the very lowest floor.

“ _Access restricted. Swipe clearance card.”_

Jin muttered darkly and kept pushing buttons up from the bottom. Eventually when he hit “Floor -3” the elevator started moving. Jin kept grumbling all the way down. He twisted at the metal cuffs chafing on his wrists. When he got to floor -3, he was unimpressed. He’d been hoping for at least one nefarious, secret, corporate experiment. Instead he found more dreary grey corridors and offices. He wandered aimlessly down these, mulling over his own thoughts. He remembered walking like this through a desert after a fight that had nearly killed him. The sand had a way getting under the wraps he wore, and rubbing gritty on the back of his neck. The sun had burnt his skin and the ground had sunk beneath his every step. In that place between desperation and despair, he’d entered an almost meditative calm and thought of his mistakes. He’d thought of the lives he’d ruined to get to the places he thought he’d been trying to get to. But under the red sun, the cursed mark on his arm still stood out black. Whatever he’d destroyed, it hadn’t been enough. It would somehow never be enough.

Somehow at the time it had made sense. The world felt so much less real from the top of the Mishima Zaibatsu Tower. The things he’d ordered from there… He’d never had to see the consequences. He’d not really even understood the consequences until he’d seen the people lining up at tournaments with a personal vendetta against _him._ They reminded him of the old newspaper cuttings he’d read about his father when he’d moved into the Mishima Estate. _Mishima Zaibatsu found to be funding all three sides of current Middle East conflict; Mishima CEO rumoured to be stockpiling weapons contracts – places bid for entire island of Hokkaido; Mishima CEO to build private army and nation?; Mishima Zaibatsu claims responsibility for series of Brazilian political assassinations; Mishima Zaibatsu rumoured to be responsible for disappearance of acclaimed Russian weapons designer and scientist; Mishima CEO terrorises own staff, rumoured to be violent and unstable; Zaibatsu suspected of animal blackmarket trafficking and illegal experimentation._ Jin had read that last one a number of times, because it mentioned ‘officers assigned to the case’ and had a small black and white print picture of his mother. Nothing much had remained of his home in Yakushima, so that paper photograph had ended up clutched to his chest on countless sleepless nights until it eventually crumbled in his fingers.

All these years spent trying to destroy the Mishimas, and in the end, his own life was starting to look not so different.

He came upon a steel door, dented in places. A security camera was above it, but hung with cobwebs. Jin tried the handle. The door stayed stuck fast. Jin sighed. He tilted his head. This dead end piqued his curiosity. He wondered if that camera was still on and if this door was really that tough… _Don’t be childish. And don’t wreck G-Corp property. Don’t give Kazuya any more excuses to come for your blood._

Jin chewed on his own thoughts for a bit. In the end he booted the door near the handle with a powerful front kick. The cuffs on his wrists felt a little tighter, and he felt some of his energy drain. This ticked him off, so drew back again and kicked the lock mechanism. He kicked again and again until the thing crumpled and dropped off the door with a clang. Jin stood panting for a moment. He pushed his fringe back out of his eyes. He supposed he might have some unworked out anger issues over being pent up here in G-Corp.

The door creaked open when he pulled it. His chest filled with an excited trepidation as he looked into the forbidden place beyond. At first he was disappointed – another grey corridor, absolutely silent. Something about the place made the hair on the back of his neck stand up and tingle though.

He lifted up a foot. Beneath was a fine print of his shoe in a film of thin dust.

He stepped gingerly forward. On his left was a window into an office. The plastic blinds were all askew. Through them he could see furniture strewn about. He rattled the office door, only to find it was locked. He peered through the glass window in it. A dark red smear on the far wall caught his eye – the only colour in an otherwise grey picture. Jin swallowed. He was beginning to feel this corridor had definitely been locked for a reason.

He passed another room, this one with an upturned operating table, and instruments scattered across the floor. Old, stained brown handprints were smeared down the window looking in. Blood. Jin swallowed again. He spread his fingers and placed his palm to the print. It was reversed and on the inside of the glass. There were no bodies, but he knew with a certainty that someone had died here, just on the other side of that window. They had died looking towards where he was standing now, begging for mercy. Jin pulled his hand away from the glass, a little surprised by the sharp detail of that realisation. He decided not to touch anything else.

A door to an office lay across his path now. It had been torn clean off its hinges. A dusty silver plaque on it read, ‘Dr E. Kliesen, Biomedical Engineering’. He took a large step over it and into the office. A desk had been smashed into the far wall and all its drawers had fallen open. None of its contents lay on the floor, however. Jin turned on the spot. A desk chair had fallen in the opposite direction. He crouched next to it. Its leathery upholstery had been torn open by four knife-like incisions. He hovered his hand above them – they were about the spread of his fingers apart in width. He frowned and stood. Flecks of dark on the white walls looked like they might be blood. Someone had vaguely tidied up here. The bodies were gone, whatever confidential papers that had been about were gone, but these were definitely the scenes of crimes, probably homicides. He felt a shiver down his spine. He backed out of the office and stumbled when his heel hit the door on the floor. He righted himself, but caught sight of a CCTV camera close to the ceiling. It was grimy and old like everything here, though a single small green light did still pulse under its black lens.

He should definitely leave. He definitely should not be here. Those marks in the chair had been claw marks. This was Kazuya’s doing. A kind of fascinated dread had seized hold of him now though, and he found himself almost compelled to keep going. The room at the end of the corridor was much larger than the others. It contained a single, tall, cylindrical glass tank. The glass was cracked with jagged holes in a number of places, and hairline fractures ran throughout what remained of it.

Shards crunched under Jin’s foot as he walked into the laboratory. The equipment in this room was mostly intact, from what he could tell. Monitoring devices caked with dust stood all around the tank. Jin was hit by the overwhelming desire to touch that tank. He didn’t want to feel the things that its inhabitant had felt. He didn’t. And yet… He reached out his fingertips for the glass.

“Did the locked door not give you a hint, Kazama Jin?”

Jin jumped around, fists raised. Kazuya stood in the doorway. His expression was dark and unreadable. There was danger in his eyes.

“K-Kazuya…” Jin started. “I wasn’t-… I mean, I was just-”

“Just…?” Kazuya folded his arms across his chest.

Jin collected himself together after the initial fright of being caught.

“What is this place? People died here, didn’t they.” Jin’s eyebrows knitted together in a frown. “You did this.”

Kazuya just kept looking at him steadily. There was something building behind his gaze. Jin could feel warnings going off inside him like clanging bells.

“Who is… E. Kliesen?” Jin continued. “Did you kill that person? Why? Why would you kill people who are working for you?”

Kazuya said nothing.

“And…” Kazuya’s silence was making Jin agitated, but he ploughed on stubbornly anyway. “And… if you have control over your devil, does that mean you did all this knowingly? You deliberately killed these people with your own hands?”

Kazuya drummed his fingers on his biceps. He tilted his head as he finally spoke.

“Is it so different from ordering an air strike from the comfort of the Zaibatsu?”

“That is not the same!” Jin fired back. “That’s not the same at all!”

“Because it was remote? And you couldn’t see the eyes of the people you killed?”

“No! Because I was doing what I thought I needed to in order to avert a greater evil!”

Kazuya shrugged,

“Maybe I was doing the same. How do you know? You don’t know my reasons.”

Jin glared at him.

“What were your reasons then?”

There was another long quiet. The only sound was glass cracking under Jin’s feet as he shifted his weight. He thought for sure that Kazuya wouldn’t answer that, so he was surprised when he heard:

“G-Corp betrayed me. They sent an army of Jack units to kill Heihachi and I. The Dr Kliesen who’s office you found was instrumental in persuading the board of directors that I was going to be more a menace to them than an economic asset. She encouraged them to strike at both Heihachi and I and rid G-Corp of two potential problems in one fell swoop. It was a good plan.” He shrugged again. “But they failed to kill me, and so faced the consequences of their choices.”

“You… killed them all.” Jin said slowly, still with a kind of disbelief. His skin was crawling. This ghost corridor full of silence felt loud in his ears.

“With far more justification than anyone who’s died at the hands of the Zaibatsu whilst it was under your leadership. You launched drone strikes and missiles indiscriminately. You don’t even know the faces of the people you’ve murdered.”

Jin’s face went hot and his veins pulsed with fury.

“You know _nothing_ about me! And you will never understand the differences between us! I didn’t do any of that for revenge!”

“No… Which sort of makes it worse really, doesn’t it,” Kazuya said calmly. “You weren’t even invested in their deaths. They were just inconsequential numbers to you.”

“They were not just numbers to me! You have no idea what they meant to me!”

“Still…” Kazuya ploughed on as if he hadn’t heard him, “it hardly makes any difference to the victims. They don’t care if they’ve lost their kin to Kazuya’s revenge or Jin’s noble plan to rid the world of evil. To them, dead is dead. What are your aims and morals worth to them, when they hold those they loved, dead in their arms?”

Jin bared his teeth, temper seething. Enormous shadows of his own magnificent guilt unfurled full inside him. The shackles on his wrist felt tight.

“Shut up! Why are you saying all this?! It doesn’t change the terrible things you’ve done here!”

“Because you need to take responsibility for your own actions,” Kazuya said sharply, suddenly no longer casual and languid. “You cannot condemn others whilst holding yourself to a lower standard. You were reckless and childish with the Zaibatsu. You did not even seek to target those more deserving of punishment. You struck at random.”

“I thought it would be more fair than judging people!”

“It was stupid. You were not only callous and cruel, but bad at business.”

“I don’t have to hear this from you of all people!”

“Yes, you do, because you’re not listening to anyone else. You need to sort yourself out. This is not the man Kazama Jun raised you to be.”

Jin’s eyes dilated to animal yellow and the shackles on his wrists burst open. They fell to the floor with a loud clang. Kazuya stepped back immediately, arms unfolding, alarm in his face.

"You _dare_ talk about my mother?” Jin could hear his own voice, low and scratched with emotion. He felt his teeth ache as they extended into points. “You know _nothing_ about her and what she was to me!"

Kazuya looked much less complacent and comfortable now, but his voice was still level, if also tipped with annoyance.

"I dare. You got to live with her for fifteen years. Fifteen years I was robbed of. You should know better. I know she wouldn't recognise you and the things you justify to yourself today."

"You don't get to lecture me on this of all things!" Jin spat. "Your morality is as empty as this corridor. Everyone that used to fill it is dead or driven away by your own hands! Even Uncle Lee can't stand you - your own brother!"

Kazuya's face was perfectly impassive.

"I never claimed not to do terrible things. I embrace the decisions I have made. Unlike you. You either need to admit that to yourself, or change your actions. You cannot have it both ways, Jin."

Jin's hatred for Kazuya just then was so monstrous that he felt, more than saw, the tattoos writing themselves onto his skin. His breath came shorter.

"Calm down," Kazuya's voice was imperious. Jin didn't want to calm down, he wanted to tear this impertinent man apart, along with all his arrogance and truth. "Jin!" Kazuya said sharply, and Jin was glad to hear there was concern in his father's voice now. He'd been afraid a lot during the last few weeks, it was time Kazuya got to feel a little of that fear. "Be calm." Kazuya’s shoulders untensed and he cleared the anger from his words. "Be still."

Jin's chest was rising up and down fast. His nails had turned to darkened claws, just like the ones that had raked that office chair. He heard the clothes on his back tear open as wings pushed themselves through his flesh. A shadow fell over both of them as black feathers reared tall above and blocked out the laboratory strip lighting. The room swam into darker shades. A red light bathed Jin’s face as a third eye opened in his forehead.

“You _dare_ ,” Jin whispered, but his voice resonated with timbres that weren’t his own.

“Jin…” Kazuya took a step forward.

“Don’t come closer!” Jin snarled, “don’t you dare try whatever you did before! Stay out of my head!”

“I wasn’t going to.” Kazuya’s face was craggy in the twisting light and shadows. He raised his hands, keeping them open so that Jin could see them. “Jin… You don’t want this. You aren’t like me. Let it go. This isn’t who you wish to be.”

Jin’s face contorted in rage. The shuffle of black wings blotted out the light and Jin’s anger was so colossal that he could feel his control viscerally sliding away.

“ _It is!_ ” he screamed in Kazuya’s face. His lips pulled all the way back and he bared his teeth. He clashed them in animal fury. His breath came as a hiss between them. “I hate you!” Black markings spread their curling tendrils like a thick ivy over his skin. “I hate you more than anything else! I wish you were dead! I wish you’d never given me this curse! I wish I’d never been born!”

Kazuya’s brow twitched and his lips moved wordlessly. His eyes creased as if at some invisible pain. There was a moment of silence that felt like an eternity to Jin. Kazuya took a step forward. His eyebrows were still twitching, like some great confusion was bubbling out from under his calm façade. He reached out a hand slowly towards Jin.

Jin’s nostrils were flaring and his body was shaking. His wings ruffled in the air and single black feather fell between them. Kazuya’s fingers touched his cheek.

“You don’t wish that.”

Jin’s fury pooled in his eyes. Raging things were colliding in his chest. A war was shattering his breath and tugging his mind in seething directions, churning ups his innards like plunging water. The things he’d done, the things he’d justified, the death and suffering he was responsible for… and all for what? He’d been wrong. He’d been wrong from the start. He’d been wrong about that prophecy, and wrong about whether it was worth it, and wrong about pushing people away. The true magnitude of what he’d done was a thing he kept at arm’s length, a thing that if it got too close, would crush what little remained of his willpower. He couldn’t face that guilt, he couldn’t let himself own his own crimes. The part of him that did was locked in a screaming cell of his soul along with all those urgings that had been with him for some years now. The urge to give up, to end this misery, to just stop, for everything to just stop, to be nothing. The blissful release of nothingness always called to him so strongly.

Kazuya’s hand cupped his cheek. Jin’s eyes fluttered shut.

He could hear his own ragged breath in the filmy silence of the broken laboratory. There was only darkness, a musty, dusty smell, the clatter of his breathing, and the rough, calloused palm of Kazuya’s hand, warm against his face.

A tight compressing stranglehold inside him released. Suddenly Jin was gasping out air like he’d just surfaced from a long dive in a deep, dark river. A trembling wracked his body. He stood still, eyes firmly shut. He saw the room grow brighter through his eyelids as his wings shrunk away. He swallowed and drew in a shaky breath.

When he finally opened his eyes, he knew that he was back in control. Kazuya was looking at him. There was a strange expression on his face. Jin wasn’t sure what it meant or conveyed. Kazuya started to draw his hand back. An unhappy noise came from Jin before he could stop himself. Kazuya paused, touch still very light on Jin’s cheek. Jin tilted his head and bowed his forehead into Kazuya’s palm. He used the opportunity to stare at the ground and try to collect himself. Kazuya let him stay close.

Jin wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t want to be alone then. Not with his thoughts, and the things he’d done, and the thing he could become.

“Let’s go back upstairs,” Kazuya said after a long pause. He drew away. Jin’s insides clenched at the loss, but he said nothing and stayed still. He hung his head. Kazuya’s footsteps crunched on broken glass.

“I understand now.” Jin’s voice sounded small to his own ears, like it had been stretched thin and grown tired. Kazuya glanced back at him over his shoulder. “I never understood what she saw in you before. I understand now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As Anrim correctly predicted – it was big guilt trip time ;) Thank you all so much for your reviews, comments, kudos, faves, and general love! I’m very glad you’re enjoying this unplanned ramble through Jin’s disastrous emotions. I have an end in sight now – not quite all pinned down, but I’m thinking about 20 chapters or so. I have nearly 18 written, and am tweaking them as I go. I’m glad for all the positive feedback on Asuka too: I know there are people reading who like her a lot, so I’m glad her characterisation is still up your street even though I took some liberties with how I interpreted her. Honestly, tough-talking streetfighter, heart-of-gold jokester, straight as an arrow morals, feels like it could have been done much better in canon than it was. I’m enjoying working out a place for her interacting with Kaz, Lee and Jin.
> 
> Oh and I spent a while thinking about Emma Kliesen and the timings added up, so I decided she would die in the G-Corp takeover. We're never given a reason for her death in game, but Kazuya is pretty practical with who he kills and why, so this made sense to me.
> 
> Remember you can follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/erenaeoth) for chapter updates!


	12. Serene

“Heard you went wandering around G-Corp, breaking into off limit wings,” Lee said with a casual amiability that by now Jin could straight up read as anxiety and reprimand.

“You weren’t in,” Jin said. He sat cross-legged with his eyes closed, palms open on his knees. He was back on a hospital bed, with chains wrapped all the way up his forearms and biceps since he’d broken his custom-made shackles. The chains were making him drowsy, but that suited him just fine for the moment. He needed a slower pace to his thoughts as he mulled over the things Kazuya had said in that corridor full of absent murders.

Lee brushed a strand of hair out of Jin’s face. Jin opened his eyes slowly.

“I was away for one hour,” Lee said. His voice was low – that place between affectionate and scolding that Jin now realised he not only expected but looked forward to hearing. “I had to check up on some Violet Systems matters. I _am_ still running a company… Please stop provoking Kazuya, Jin. He’s already extending us a lot of courtesies. If he decides we’re inconveniencing him too much, things could get very nasty for us. Remember we’re on thin ice here. He controls the only company in the world that specialises in researching your extremely rare genetic disease.”

“It’s not a disease. It’s a curse,” Jin replied. “It’s nature out of balance. Spirits have crowded to the wrong places.”

Lee raised an eyebrow. “I think that’s those chains on your arms talking, and the additional sedative Kazuya gave you.” He leaned back in his chair next to Jin’s bed and clicked out a pair of glasses.

“No. My mother taught me.” Jin breathed deeply in through his nose and out through his mouth. The world felt stiller today, and more manageable. “There is an ebb and flow to this world and the other side. They move together like shadows and light through the different hours of the day.” He frowned. “I have become filled up with shadows.”

Jin saw Lee shiver next to him. His uncle gave him a quick smile when he saw Jin notice. Lee unfolded a few pages that had been stapled together from his blazer pocket.

“Your ‘curse’ is genetic, Jin. Which means it can be solved through scientific method. But, since it matters so much to you, I extended some of my own resources into looking into that Kazama ritual you were searching for.”

Jin’s eyes opened fully. Lee gave a distasteful grimace as he scanned the papers he had in hand.

“There’s a rite based on some old Shinto technique, particular to the village you were born in,” Lee continued. “It was used to cast out demons. It involves music, dance, incense… all the things you’d expect.”

“You think my family’s traditions are nonsense, don’t you, Uncle Lee.”

Lee was a little slow to answer. “I think your mother was a very wise person, capable of understanding people’s psychological needs and helping them accordingly. I do not doubt that she was able to help people. She certainly helped Kazuya.”

A shadow fell over Jin’s features. “And yet he still left her.”

“Kazuya died.” Lee’s eyes flashed with warning. Jin could hear that defensive wall in his voice again. Just when he thought he understood his uncle, some new depth to him opened up. “He did not leave her. He would never have left her.” Lee’s fierce expression relented. “Though… he did push her away with his choices in the last few months of his life. Before we knew that Heihachi lived though, he was ready to change. He was ready to let go and turn his life around. She did that. Kazama Jun knew how to get through to him when hardly anyone else could.” Lee paused again and with some reluctance, corrected himself. “She could get through to him… when _no one_ else could.”

“So he ignored her. He decided to go his own path, and to leave her way behind.” Jin’s voice was hard. He didn’t like the fond nostalgia in his uncle’s tone.

“Because Heihachi was alive.” A hint of irritability was in Lee’s words now. “Of course Kazuya had to strengthen himself and the Zaibatsu then. He had to kill Heihachi.”

“Heihachi,” Jin repeated. “Kazuya has been using that name to excuse his actions for far too long.”

“He killed Heihachi as much for me as he did for himself.” Lee’s eyes had gone steely. There was a hostility in them that Jin hadn’t seen before. Usually when he picked fights with his uncle, there was a cool tenderness underlying his words. Jin felt safe being stubborn around him because his care always felt unconditional. This was the first time Jin realised his uncle was very much not on his side in this argument.

“Everyone has one reason or another to hate Heihachi. I have as much reason as either of you to hate Heihachi, but I don’t use it to justify my actions.” Kazuya’s words from yesterday rang in Jin’s head. His own justifications weren’t really a whole lot better than Kazuya’s. He internally prepared himself for the reprimand that was coming.

“ _As much reason as either of us_?” That had not been the angle Jin thought Lee would go for. “Jin, your grandfather hurt you, and I would never belittle that pain, but don’t you ever let me hear you demean Kazuya’s suffering again. You lived a comfortable life with Heihachi until he turned on you. Kazuya lost his grandfather to him, watched Heihachi murder his mother, was thrown into a ravine by him, and then had to live under his roof for twenty more years, bearing not only his punishments, but often those he could take in my place. You are dear nephew to me, but you will not mock the actions of my brother, who did more for me than any other person on this planet, am I understood?”

Jin sat up straight.

He stared at Lee.

“Kazuya was thrown into a volcano, not a ravine...”

“I’m not talking about the second Iron Fist Tournament. I meant when he was a child.”

Jin shook his head, uncomprehending.

Lee took a deep breath. He ran his hand back through his hair. Jin could see weariness in the gesture. “He was five at the time. It was before I knew him. Where did you think he got all those scars?”

Jin shook his head again. He felt something strange inside, like the last pieces of a puzzle were falling into place.

“N… no one ever told me.”

“Kazuya doesn’t speak of it. I doubt he’s ever told anyone but your mother.”

“Mother knew?” Jin felt his insides crumble. “She never told me either…”

“And why would she? Kazuya was dead. His story wouldn’t change his legacy. You must know his death broke her apart. She fled not just to Yakushima but into the mountains. She’d lived in the village before that. She couldn’t be near other human beings after she lost him... We each fled to our separate islands...” Lee said with slow reflection, almost just to himself. “… The only people who’d ever really been close to him. When he fell, his empire came down with him, and everyone who’d been near him was Heihachi’s target.”

“No one’s ever spoken to me about then: no one told me anything. All I knew about my father was from newspapers and Heihachi.” Jin sat looking down at his own hands, thinking about the two people who had made him. All his life he’d only thought of himself as having a mother. When he’d inherited the devil curse, he had to come to terms with the fact that he had a father – a tyrannical, dead, business magnate who’d left him with nothing but this terrible, alienating power. Now though… now that he could see Kazuya’s life laid out before him with its years of struggling and suffering: now he didn’t feel only like the son of Kazama Jun.

He thought back on all Lee had just said.

“Wait… did you say that-… his mother? My Grandmother? Heihachi… killed her?”

“I don’t know all the details, but Kazuya intimated as much. I believe he saw the moment it happened, or soon afterwards anyway.”

It didn’t go any way to justify all Jin knew of him, but it did make a difference. Jin could start to understand why that man was the man he was. He could start to understand that Kazuya had built himself of many things, but down at the foundations – Jin knew exactly what those were. He knew the person he’d been when at fifteen when he lay in the mud and flames of his broken home, with his mother dead and the world beyond his control and this pain and loss and loneliness so terrible that it filled him up only with hollow empty things. _Hollow empty shadows._ He touched heart.

“He’s like me,” Jin’s voice cracked open with a quiet pain.

“He’s a lot like you,” Lee was soft and gentle again, with all the antagonism replaced with affection. “And a lot different, too. But he wasn’t always like he is now, you have to understand.”

“He’s still the brother you knew.” Jin set Lee with serious eyes. Lee paused. He looked a little taken aback by the intensity of Jin’s gaze. “He helped me. When he did, he didn’t feel like Kazuya – he felt like how I used to feel with my mother. He had calm all around him, and he let me be a part of it. He hasn’t forgotten those times. They’re just hidden away. Buried. Not gone.”

Lee’s face twitched with a flicker of hope. His features hardened again quickly though.

“A lot has changed since those days.” Jin could hear the sigh in his uncle’s voice that always preceded a closure of the topic. Lee stood. “If you keep fighting those chains, they’ll drain your energy even faster. Sleep now, Jin, and when you wake, a substitute for the chains should be ready, and Asuka will have had a chance to look over these ritual notes.”

Jin frowned. Lee was always doing that. He walked a tightrope between being the eccentric uncle and the serious parental figure, but as soon as conversation touched places where he was personally vulnerable, doors slid shut on every side. Jin only ever had glimpses into the person he was behind all those solid walls. Now that he knew what he knew, he could see the paranoia and violence that had stormed into his own life after Heihachi shot him, magnified ten-fold in the lives of Kazuya and Lee. Lee and Kazuya had seemed so different to one another at first glance, but this caginess and reluctance to let people close to them – _really_ close to them – that was as clear as day to Jin now. From the way Lee spoke, there had been a time in the past when he and Kazuya had let each other in on their secrets, and been close in some capacity. Jin didn’t understand the details of what had happened, but he didn’t miss the hurt and bitterness in Lee’s voice that lingered there just as much as the tenderness and defensiveness he had for Kazuya.

“Uncle?”

Lee turned to him and gave him a brilliant smile, tossing his head so that his silver hair flipped out of his eyes.

“Yes? Anything you need?”

Jin looked at him, standing proud with his hand on his hip and his clothes all radiant, mask perfectly in place.

Jin returned the smile.

“Nothing. Never mind.”

Lee gave him a thumbs up before he left the clinic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something a little quieter and slower, in which Jin realises he himself is still changing but that his uncle and father are bound to the past. Thank you for your continued support! I received some more short story prompts, so I will continue posting some short stories soon to Iron Fist and Iron Will.


	13. Void

“I don’t really get it,” Asuka looked up from the pages she’d been reading. An enormous table spread with paper, open books, and printed images was scattered between them. Kazuya had given them an entire office to work in. Light fell into the room through large panes of glass. Tokyo buzzed outside the windows, warmed by afternoon sun and dotted with the roaming shadows of skating clouds.

“Don’t get what?” Jin asked, setting aside the book he’d been reading.

“Half these texts are about chasing out bogeymen by shaking sticks at them, and the other half are all – search for inner nothingness and escape from the world. Like, do they want me to punch these demons or go meditate in a monastery? Make up your mind, ya get me?”

“Both of those things can be the case at once,” Jin said. “The concept of driving off what is evil is not so different from searching for an emptiness that is beyond the menial things that hold us down.”

Asuka pushed up the trilby hat she’d been bought by Lee up and looked at him from under the brim.

“Huh. Kazama Jin, I’m never gonna get you figured. Are you monk or a kid who likes racing stolen motorbikes?”

Jin balked.

“We didn’t steal those bikes!” he protested. “Hwoarang and I put them back where we found them afterwards! We were just trying them out…”

Asuka leaned back in her chair and put her feet up on the table. She put a pen she’d been holding behind her ear.

“Ya just proved my point.”

Jin sighed.

“Just keep that between us, okay? And try not to be so… you, when my father arrives.”

“Mr Mishima’s coming here?” Asuka took her feet off the desk and sat up straight.

“He’s going to talk through what he remembers of the ritual with us.”

“I mean, I know he was going to do that with you, but I didn’t think I’d be needed for-”

“You’re key to this, Asuka. And don’t worry, he’s not coming to stir up trouble.”

Asuka looked much more unsure of herself than usual.

“Uh huh, yeah, gotcha. But, uh, so far my involvement in this has all been pretty, y’know, on the sidelines. I haven’t really had to speak to your old man. Kinda just got glares from a distance so far. Was totally up for keeping things that distant, ya know.” She laughed nervously.

Before Jin could reply, the door opened and Kazuya walked in. Jin gave Asuka the most reassuring smile he could. She stood abruptly, then looked awkward about it. She gave Kazuya a small bow. Jin remained seated and couldn’t stop his eyebrows from raising as he watched her.

“Uh. Hi, Mr Mishima,” she said.

Kazuya waved at her dismissively to sit down. He drew up a chair and sat at the table with them. Jin stopped slouching and straightened his posture. He suddenly felt like he was in the world’s most odd business meeting.

Kazuya collected a wad of papers to him, pulled out a pair of glasses, and set them on his nose.

“Where are we? Have you compiled these in any order?” To give him credit, Kazuya did sound like he was talking to a room full of employees, not two confused youths.

“They’re in order of what feels most right.” That was Asuka.

Kazuya looked at her from over the rim of his glasses. Jin was impressed to see she didn’t wither under that intense scrutiny.

“Alright,” Kazuya said, taking that at face value. “Tell me what you have so far.”

Asuka moved to the edge of her seat, trying to get a good look at the enormous spread of paper before them.

“Uh, well, there’s a lot on preparing the individual who’s to undergo the exorcism, and willingness on their part. Then there’s-” She reached for a sheet that was out of reach, Jin managed to catch it with his fingertip and push it her direction. The page fluttered up into the air and Asuka caught it. “Things on atmosphere for the exorcism – the incense to use, the instruments to be used, the placement of musicians, the use of invocations. And there was-” Asuka had to pause again to try and collect more paper that was out of reach.

Kazuya clicked his tongue irritably. Asuka looked up at him.

“Do you mind if I-…?” Asuka gestured to the table.

“Just tell me what I need to know, I don’t care for formalities,” Kazuya said.

Asuka grinned. She vaulted onto the table, making Jin and Kazuya both blink in surprise. She sat herself in the middle of the table and crossed her legs.

“Okay, so there’s also a bunch of different dances that are done in time with the music, and a number of sources talk about smoking the demon out of the individual. Alongside all that, we’ve got all the philosophical nonsense that Jin was looking into.”

Their eyes turned to Jin, and it was his turn to collect his papers together. He coughed a little self-consciously.

“I was looking into the state of mind that the possessed person must have. They must detach themselves from the desire to forge themselves as an individual. They must stop trying to imprint themselves on the world with power and possessions and must instead think of themselves as one amidst many, or rather, not one at all, but nothing and all things.”

“We split the workload evenly,” Asuka put in, “we’re both doin’ a lot of hard thinking.”

Kazuya raised his eyebrows and looked back to Jin.

“Nothing and all things?”

Jin nodded. “Like the sound of the river in the mountain forest. It belongs to one thing, but its sound fills all the air and belongs not just to the river but to all the mountainside. I cannot think of the trees without thinking of water over stones; I cannot look at the valleys all filled with mist without also thinking that beneath them, streams still run fast, because the sound belongs to all of it and not just to any one feature. It is one thing, and all things, and so in some ways, it is also none of those things.”

There was quiet in the G-Corp office. Jin felt his face redden.

Asuka leaned over and slapped him on the back of the shoulder.

“Wow, Jin, where was all this when you were bombing Madrid!”

Jin looked away quickly. It had been easy to think of Yakushima and his childhood as he read over these files. The things he’d done since had felt lightyears away.

Kazuya cleared his throat. “Well, some of those things are going to be easier to replicate here than others.”

“Hey, Mr Mishima.” Asuka folded her hands under her chin and tilted her head. “How many demons are we planning to get rid of? ‘Cause, just saying, this could work for more than one.”

Silence followed that.

Jin felt a ripple of darkness in the air around him. His eyes snapped back up. Kazuya’s eyes were volcanic, one filled with black intensity, the other glowing fury red. Asuka straightened where she sat and swallowed.

“Asuka, didn’t mean anything by that,” Jin said hurriedly.

He could feel dangerous things swirling in the room around him. Kazuya was usually so calm and controlled. There was a weight and a pressure now to the very air around him, drying everything to a cracked heat and pressing a choked sooty flavour to every breath. Jin realised this must mean that this, of all things, threatened Kazuya, in a way that nothing else so far had. Asuka seemed to get smaller, her shoulders curling in. Her eyes squeezed shut and it looked like she was getting the full brunt of this monumental darkness that was suffocating the room.

“Kazuya!” Jin stood.

Kazuya broke eye contact with Asuka and turned to Jin. For a moment, Jin thought he was looking into those infernal eyes that had haunted his waking nightmares of the last day or two. Then the fire in them died back.

Kazuya reached into his jacket and pulled out a cigarette case. He selected a cigarette and stamped it on the back of his hand. He lit it up with a flare of a match that smelled briefly of sulphur. He blew smoke out his nose like nothing unusual had happened at all.

“One,” he said. Jin couldn’t even remember the question Kazuya was answering. “We’re only planning to get rid of one demon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :[] Someone's a bit touchy on the subject of demon removal.  
> Jin's ramblings are inspired by Gregory Nazianzus crossed with some Buddhist ideas. When it comes to Kazama spirituality I tend to go for more of a Shinto aesthetic, but the crossover between Shinto and Buddhism has a lot of history in Japan anyway.  
> This was the chapter where all Asuka's dialogue started going all Majima on me because I was trying to think how to represent a Kansai dialect in English. There will be more of her and Jin's shenanigans in future. Next chapter is more father and son heart to heart.........  
> Thank you for all the support, reviews and comments, both on this and my other Tekken fics that some of you are reading through whilst waiting for chapters! I've nearly finished a first draft of Chasing Demons and it'll be around 20 chapters maybe a little more.


	14. Storm

“Would you ever think about it?”

It was evening. They were standing on G-Corp helipad. A chill wind was tugging their flapping coats and threatening to put out Kazuya’s cigarette. He sucked on it and the embers briefly flared gold.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kazuya looked out over the city below. Jin didn’t miss the way his eyes came to rest on the Zaibatsu logo, lit up white neon in the distance, so close yet eternally far for someone like Kazuya.

“Letting go.”

There were touches of indigo in the deep black night and light pollution from a thousand towers grazed the edges of clouds in luminous shades.

“No,” Kazuya replied. He sheltered his cigarette from the wind.

“But you did once.” Jin folded his arms.

“You asking me or telling me?”

Jin sighed. Kazuya could be so difficult to talk to. A long silence stretched between them. The wind picked up and came to a low roar in their ears. It brought the flying spit of first rain with it. When it subsided, Kazuya spoke again.

“A long time ago, when I thought things could be different, I made the mistake of thinking that the difficult part of my life was behind me, and started thinking of a different way things could be.”

Jin’s chest tightened. He knew that thought, and he knew the fear that came of realising that trust had been misplaced. He looked out at the cityscape and watched the gleam of headlights blur up highstreets.

“You’re not going to try and persuade me to return to my naiver days?” Kazuya said, bemused.

Jin drew his arms about him and hugged himself against the biting cold. “Someone told me I shouldn’t condemn others whilst holding myself to lower standards.”

Kazuya turned to face him and leaned back on the perimeter railings.

“So you do listen sometimes.”

Jin said nothing. He was heavy inside, thinking of his own past mistakes. His breathing was slow, as though sorrow was making the air in his lungs sluggish.

“You know.” Kazuya tapped ash onto the railing, but it was swept off before it could even settle. “Just because you got things wrong in the past, it doesn’t mean you have to close yourself down to ever trusting again.” Jin stared at Kazuya. “You just have to learn how to do it better next time. Be a better judge of character. Surround yourself with more reliable people. If you let every failure get you down, you’ll drive yourself crazy. You have to pick yourself up, hold your head higher, train harder, be better than anyone else, and bide your time until the moment of revenge is upon you. Only then will you annihilate the cause of your suffering and be free from its yoke.”

“You really had me for a moment there. I thought you were giving me sound life advice.”

Kazuya gave him a crooked smile.

“First lesson in who to trust and listen to mastered.”

Jin looked away and gave a small smile. Spots of white flakes twizzled through the air. He looked back up. Half a dozen snowflakes tangled in his fringe.

“Damn, thought it was cold.” Kazuya glanced up at the snow and blew on his fingers. He looked bizarrely human. When Jin had looked out at G-Corp Tower from the Zaibatsu building, he had always assumed Kazuya stood on this helipad cackling maniacally, with wings outstretched, his skin purple, and horns sticking out his head.

“If your devil was removed too, then I wouldn’t feel so bad about wanting mine gone. We could just fight each other like a regular father and son warring over mega-corporations and the direction of the world’s future.”

Kazuya paused. For a moment Jin wasn’t sure if Kazuya would round on him or laugh. Then that smirk appeared on Kazuya’s lips.

“You can fight me as a regular man regardless, Kazama Jin. Heihachi did. Don’t underestimate your own strength.”

“If that’s the case, then why do you need your devil at all.”

“Why?” Kazuya looked at him from over the smoking stub of his cigarette. “Because I’m power hungry. I love having control, I love the feeling of power, I love not having to rely on other people and instead having super-human strength, I love the freedom devil gives me. And because I owe it.”

“You owe it?” Jin asked that before he’d thought, and suddenly realised this might be about when Kazuya was a child, and that event that Lee had only recently divulged to him. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his long jacket. Snow blew wild across the helipad and settled in small heaps in the few places of shelter from the wind.

“If it hadn’t come to me on a day when I had great need of it. If it hadn’t leant me its strength, I wouldn’t be here today. And neither would you.”

“It had as much to gain as you,” Jin murmured. “It sounds to me like it just manipulated a child. It was hardly a fair deal.”

Kazuya stepped closer. His left eye glowed dimly in the dark.

“I never said anything about being a child at the time.”

Jin took a step back. He swallowed.

“Uncle Lee said-… I mean he told me that-…” The night air felt suddenly much colder. Jin’s breath came faster, visible as white clouds before his lips, making snowflakes spin madly. “I didn’t mean to pry…”

There was a long pause.

Then Kazuya backed off.

“Hmph. Well, I suppose you were bound to find out sooner or later. Yes, I was a child at the time. But that’s of no consequence either way.”

Jin stayed quiet, wary of digging himself in deeper, and half-hoping Kazuya might shed light on this without further prompting. Kazuya flicked away the end of his cigarette.

“It’s cold and getting late. Your nose has gone red.”

Jin glared at him and instinctively hid his nose. Its tip was very cold. Kazuya laughed. Jin felt a little silly. He rubbed his nose, then gave Kazuya a small, still slightly uncertain smile.

“Come on,” Kazuya said, “I’ll let you try some of my whisky before bed, I don’t need you for testing tomorrow.” He clapped Jin on the shoulder as he turned to head inside.

Jin froze.

They both felt it. Kazuya’s hand was over the devil tattoo. There was a tug inside Jin, like a rope was being pulled out from between his hands. For a moment, neither of them moved or said anything. Then-

“Of course.” Kazuya spoke softly. “Of _course!_ This is it! This is the answer!”

He took Jin by his shoulders and turned him to face him. Jin had been thinking about Kazuya being more familiar with him and what that might feel like for some time now, but this wasn’t the way he’d imagined it. There was something incredibly distant between them, despite the proximity and contact. Kazuya had that light in his eyes, like he was thinking of the future and the way it would bend to his machinations.

“You just have to be willing!” There was almost an ecstatic quality to Kazuya’s voice. “You just have to submit that power to me, and I can draw it to myself! I don’t need to kill you! Just relinquish it and don’t fight me! Give in to me willingly and I can make it mine. I can do it right now!” Kazuya cupped a hand around Jin’s face, his thumb resting on his cheek. It was a poor parody of the affection Jin wanted from him. “Give it to me,” his voice was low. His eye glimmered red in the darkness. “Give it to me and I can make everything go away.”

Jin looked at him warily. He could feel a gathering energy about him, like a whirlpool in a black lake. A pressure mounted like fingers pressed to his temples. His throat felt dryer and his tongue thicker. A familiar burnt flavour filled Jin’s mouth like curling smoke.

“Why are you resisting me?” Kazuya’s eyes flashed. “This is everything you asked for! Let me take this burden from you, Kazama Jin.” His thumb stroked Jin’s cheek. All Jin could think of was Lee telling him that Kazuya burned the people that got too close to him, that every time he was gentler there was a subtle violence to him even then.

“Not like this.” Jin shook his head. He felt Kazuya’s hand tighten a little, fingers locking around the back of his head. “We’re so close to getting the Kazama ritual ready and prepared. I want to do it like that.”

“Jin, Jin…” The tender way he said his name made Jin’s heart ache. He could be rid of this gene right now and he could give Kazuya what he wanted. His father would be pleased with him _and_ he’d finally be free from this curse. Surely this was everything he’d dreamed of? “Even once the ritual is done, there’s no guarantee of its success,” Kazuya said softly. “It takes a long time to be rid of its influence. It’s a gradual thing: a mental trial that you must work at every day. And one slip, one little wish that you could have that power back, and so much work is undone. It’s an uphill struggle. This way is so much easier. Let me help you. Let me take your pain away.” With his other hand he stroked back through Jin’s hair. “Let me set you free.”

Jin closed his eyes. The hand combing through his hair was gentle, reassuring, comforting. It felt like safety and home and letting go. He could be accepted. He could be loved. It would be so easy. He took a deep shuddering breath.

“But I don’t want you to have more of this power.”

The hand stopped in his hair and the grip on the back of his neck tightened. Jin winced. He looked into Kazuya’s eyes. They were smouldering with barely held back fury.

“Think about it,” Jin managed to say calmly. “You were only able to control its power after its strength was split and partially given to me. What if weakening the devil gene is what gave you power over it? What if you lose that control when your power is reunited to mine?”

Kazuya gaze was still glacier hard. His fingertips had gone rigid and Jin could feel his nails digging into the base of his skull.

“What if it makes you… colder,… darker?” Jin asked.

“You said you wanted to be rid of this,” Kazuya hissed. “You said you regretted the things you did under its influence. You said you regretted the wars, the death, the rage. Do you even know what you’ve done as your devil self? You’ve eaten human flesh, Kazama. Have you thought about that? You’re a cannibalistic lunatic when that thing takes over you. You can break out of those restraints I gave you when you’re angry enough. What if next time your cousin annoys you, y-“

“I know what you’re trying to do.” That came out remarkably controlled, given that internally Jin was crawling with self-repulsion. Had he really-… Had he really eaten someone? Surely Kazuya would just say anything to get what he wanted, but what if he really…?

“Think about it.” Kazuya’s whisper interrupted his thoughts. It was somehow inside his head as well as out loud. “You’ve done terrible, terrible things. Hurt countless people. Who might be next? I once nearly killed your uncle and didn’t even realise it. I pulled myself back before the final blow. Could you do that, I wonder? Could you pull back? Didn’t you injure him whilst you were at Violet Systems? He’s been so good to you. Don’t you owe it to the people who care about you to be rid of this thing as soon as possible?”

“S…stop that.” Jin tried to pull back, but Kazuya kept him standing before him with a firm grip. “I want to be rid of it. But… but I also want…”

“ _Yes?_ ” Kazuya tilted his head. Jin could see his hunger and impatience were barely held in check.

“I want… for things to be better between us. For us not to have to fight one another.”

There was a pause. Then Kazuya smiled. It was like the smile of a hannya: all demon and mask with no true face.

“You want us to be a family, Kazama Jin?”

Jin’s heart sunk. He’d laid his cards on the table. He was exposed in a very real way that would hurt when Kazuya took that apart.

“I can do that,” Kazuya continued. His words turned again, walking that edge between threat and affection as was necessary. “I can be family to you, Jin. I can learn to be a good father. And it would please me greatly if my son gave me this. It would be a true sign of affection from you – proof that you want to set aside our differences and start building a better relationship with me. You think that I’d ever forget such a choice as this? This is what true bonding and sacrifice look like. This is what brings families closer together. Give me that power. Give it to me, and you’ll have everything you dreamed of and more. You can be close to your friends again. You can do things a regular young man your age would do. You can go out and be happy knowing there isn’t something darker waiting to come out when you let your guard down. You can sleep at night knowing you haven’t hurt anyone in the blackout lapses in your mind. You can have a family again: Chaolan can take you on stupid shopping trips where you won’t freak out and nearly destroy a mall, and I can show you my empire – an empire you’ll one day inherit as my only son and heir.” His tight grip dissolved and he cradled Jin’s head between his hands. “Think about it.”

Jin held his gaze.

“I don’t just want good things for me though. I want them for you too.” Kazuya’s stare hardened. Jin took a deep breath. “Do the ritual with me. Please. Heihachi isn’t around anymore. Without this gene, I won’t be a threat to you. The curse will be gone from the world. You’ll still be strong next to others. You don’t need this anymore. I don’t want to lose the brief glimpses of a better you to even more of this evil thing.”

Kazuya let him go. His lip twisted in distaste.

“You disappoint me, Jin.”

Jin drew himself up. His eyes narrowed. “You’re the one who’s a disappointment, Father. Your words are so much more empty and meaningless than the small gestures of actual care you let slip through your façade. I will never give this gene up to you. I will get rid of it through the Kazama ritual and you won’t see a shred of its power yourself.”

There was a blur and Kazuya moved so fast Jin’s breath left his body. One moment he’d been standing on the helipad with the snow settling all around him, and the next he was hanging out over the edge of the building. His shoes scrabbled for purchase on the roof edge. Tokyo was a distant cacophony of car horns and pinpricks of light far below, and the wind was shrieking through his long coat as it fanned like a flag about him. Kazuya’s hand was around his throat holding him out over the long drop.

“Or I can just rip it from your dead body!” Kazuya snarled.

Blood and wind roared in Jin’s ears. His pulse raced. He tried to keep his eyes on Kazuya and not to think about the long, long fall beneath him. He wondered if he’d turn into a devil before he hit the ground. Now that he thought of the gene, he felt the cuffs on his wrists tighten. There was a strain inside him and his body felt like it was wearing clothes two sizes too small. He could feel his muscles trembling as darkness tried to rise up in response to his predicament. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. He closed his eyes.

He felt himself being flung through the air. For a moment, everything left him but the sharp thought that he was going to die. Then the ground came up rather sooner than expected. He opened his eyes. He’d been tossed back onto the helipad, and slid some way on the fresh snow. He ached dully from where he’d hit the concrete and his neck throbbed from the tight grip. Kazuya stalked over and towered above him. His index finger curled like a claw as he pointed down at Jin.

“I _will_ get that power!”

Relief was crashing through Jin. He didn’t have time to be angry with Kazuya. The man had had his chance and again stopped short of killing him. The chasm between Kazuya’s words and actions was wide enough to fill Jin with hope.

“And I wouldn’t _smile_ if I were you!” Kazuya snapped.

Jin hadn’t realised he was. He pushed his fringe out of his eyes. He stayed where he’d fallen in the snow, just looking up at Kazuya, processing what it meant that he was here and alive after admitting he’d never let Kazuya have the power he wanted.

“I will keep this power _and_ take yours!” Kazuya seethed. “I’ve just got back everything I lost and this time I won’t let anyone convince me to give it up! Keep pestering me with your petty morals, but I will never change, and you’re a fool for believing otherwise. I told you to stop believing in me, but you have to keep looking at me with your damn manipulative Kazama eyes, trying to make me doubt myself, trying to weaken me. But I’ve learned from that mistake, and it’s never happening again. Don’t test me again, or this time I won’t be so merciful, Jun- Jin,” he corrected.

He scowled at the slip, then turned away with a whirl of his coat and stalked inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> managed not to toss his son off a building, that's basically parenting covered for the Mishimas. I have mixed feelings about this story, but I like this chapter. I had a vivid picture of G-Corp helipad at night in the snow and snowflake fringe Jin wanting gentle hugs.
> 
> Cheers for all the reviews, comments and support! I also uploaded a new Tekken short story today. You can read it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21407845/chapters/56708599).


	15. Frost

“He _what_?” Asuka glanced over her shoulder conspiratorially and scooted closer to Jin. “Jin, are you _crazy_? Your old man dangled you over the edge of a skyscraper and you think this is a _good_ thing?”

“Not the dangling bit.” Jin shifted in his seat under Asuka’s fierce expression. “After that. Weren’t you listening? He let me go. Not off the building, I mean. He put me back down.”  
  
  
“Yeah, I realise this is a big step up for a Mishima – managing to not yeet your son off a cliff, but-“

“ _Asuka_. Look, you _cannot_ tell Uncle Lee about this, ok? He won’t understand.”

“ _I_ don’t understand. This guy is crazy! Hey, listen. Now that we know about this ritual, we don’t need him, right? He told us all he remembers of it. Let’s get all the research papers on the ritual together and get out of here! Or does his friendly fatherliness not extend to letting you leave the building without permission.”

Jin shot her a look. They were sitting in a balcony garden on the third floor of G-Corp Tower. They’d attempted earlier to leave just to walk in the gardens a block away, but had been stopped at the entrance by G-Corp guards. No explanation had been given, other than that Mr Mishima had instructed for no one to be allowed out without his express leave to do so. Asuka had readied her fists then and there, but Jin had talked her down. She was still bitter about it.

“I don’t want to leave,” Jin folded his arms. Everything on the balcony was crystallised over with beads of frost and half-shed tears of icicles. Asuka was in two oversized, knitted woollen sweaters with the sleeves pulled over her fingers because she refused to wear gloves. She propped her chin up with one submerged hand now and raised a sceptical eyebrow at him. “I mean,” Jin clarified, “I want to stay here to do the ritual. I want him to see. I want to give him a chance to be able to choose it for himself.”

“ _Kazuya?_ Choose to be rid of the devil gene?” Asuka pulled her knees up and shoved them into her jumper as well. “Boy, you really are a super idiot.”

“Maybe.” Jin looked out over the balcony. “But it’s what my mother would do.”

Asuka paused. Jin could see her chewing her lip. He looked harder into the city skyline. He’d had a lot of time on his hands to think recently. He’d been pausing more often to step back and look anew at any proposed ‘Mishima’ solution to a problem. Now that he’d spent a little time around Kazuya, he was beginning to understand something of his choices. He seemed to be even more at war with himself than Jin was. Here was someone comfortable with his choice to choose the most destructive and power-hungry route at every opportunity, yet when not outright challenged, Kazuya tended to inch towards an edge where he wavered between entirely selfish choices and a reluctant responsibility for his so-called assets. Except Jin wasn’t just an asset in his laboratory anymore. He’d transcended that role and become something far more troublesome to Kazuya. Something that could say no to him and not be hurled from a rooftop. Asuka was right to be sceptical at calling that progress, but to Jin, this was a turning point. The things he’d believed of Kazuya since learning he was alive, the things Heihachi had told him about him, the warnings Lee had given him, those were all the product of a Mishima mind. And he was Kazama Jin, not Mishima Jin. It felt good to be able to fix his mind on a target again, and this time, unlike his decision with Azazel and the Zaibatsu, it felt right. Right all the way through, and not just in its ends.

“Uh oh.”

“Hm?” Jin looked up.

“You got that look in your eye.” Azuka had stuffed her hands in her armpits to keep warm. Her nose and cheeks were red and her breath was coming out in puffs of cold air. “I saw it on the TV when you took over that Mishima company. You got the look of a man on a mission. Bombs about to start falling. Look out lesser mortals!”

Jin scowled at her.

“Nothing like that. I’m just thinking about how to help Kazuya.”

“Help him take over the world?”

“ _No._ Stop being annoying. How to help him overcome his demons.”

“Yeah, well…” Asuka slunk her legs back out of her sweater and stood. “Good luck chasing that around. I’m going to get on doing things that actually matter. Things with tangible results not based on dreams. Like asking that coffee machine to make me a hot chocolate.”

“Already tried. It only does coffee.”

“Dammit! Even my tangible requests are based on dreams!”

Jin got up and put a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I’ve somehow dragged you into all this and now you can’t even leave.”

“Or get a hot chocolate.”

“Or get a hot chocolate,” he agreed.

“It’s okay,” Asuka said slowly. “At least I got to miss my English exam last week. I get to sleep in a super comfortable bed, and Mr Mishima let me have an arcade machine installed in my room. Kind of a bummer about being trapped in an evil genetics company though. Did you know your old man asked me if I’d be willing to let his crazy doctors take some of my blood for testing?”

Jin pulled back,

“He did? What did you say?”

“I told him he and his mad scientists can go to hell!”

“You did?”

Asuka rubbed the back of her neck.

“Mighta said it a little more politely than that. Your old man kinda gives me the shivers.”

Jin looked at Asuka. She was one of the toughest people he knew – always hard as nails in the face of any problem. It was disconcerting to hear that note of resignation in her voice, nomatter how much she tried to cover it up.

“Hey,” Jin said to her. She looked at him with tired eyes. He’d been about to suggest they get back to work, and judging from that look she was giving him, she knew it too. “What do you think happens if you put squares of chocolate straight into hot coffee? That must be a bit like hot chocolate.”

Half an hour later they had drunk a lot of coffee – viscous with half melted chocolate. Asuka was doing cartwheels about the office and Jin’s head was buzzing. The paperwork was untouched before them.

Lee walked in whilst they were both comparing who could jump higher. Jin put his fist through a roof tile and it exploded into plaster that rained on him just as his uncle stopped in the doorway. Flecks of white plaster littered his hair. Jin leaned against the wall in an effort to look casual and less guilty. Asuka supressed her laughter by snickering into her hand.

“Setting an example by being the adult in the room, are we, Jin?” Lee said. He went over and turned the coffee machine off at the wall. “I think that’s enough of that.”

“Hey! Hey, Mr Lee! Look at me I can infinitely kick forever!” Asuka sprang forward and aimed a high head kick at Lee. Lee blocked it with one hand as he walked and continued his way to the desk. Jin was squinting up at the hole he’d made in the ceiling, wondering if there was a way to cover it up so that Kazuya wouldn’t find out. Lee surveyed the spread papers with an unimpressed look on his face.

“Right, I think a break is in order before you two bring G-Corp down on our heads. You’ve been cooped up in here for too long.”

“We’re not allowed to leave.” Asuka was now trying to ‘infinite kick’ the coffee machine.

“They stopped us at the door,” Jin explained.

Lee’s eye twitched.

“Well, I’d like to see them try and stop me. Come on. Bring the ritual research and we can find a spot in town to work on it – a café maybe.”

Jin and Asuka began collecting together the papers spread across the tables.

“Leave those there.”

A shadow fell over the room. Jin felt the air turn a little colder.

Kazuya stood in the doorway.

Jin noticed the way his uncle’s shoulders stiffened.

Lee turned to face his brother. There was something odd in the movement. He had a quick smile on his face, but Jin could hear faux trim to the brightness in his voice: fear, he realised.

“Ah. Kazuya. Excellent to see you. I was going to take Jin and Asuka out for a bit.”

“By all means.” Kazuya leaned on the door frame and folded his arms, his bulk conspicuously filled the only exit to the room. “But leave those papers here. I’d hate for something to happen to them whilst you were in town. What if they got lost? Or stolen? It would be such a tragedy.”

Lee glanced away.

“Yes, of course. You’re right, they’re far too precious to take out the building.”

Even Asuka had noticed something was amiss now. She exchanged a look with Jin. Jin’s blood was racing and he was beginning to wish he hadn’t drunk three cups of coffee. Had Lee had the same thought as Asuka earlier? That if they took the papers and ran, they could have everything they wanted minus Kazuya?

Lee made to leave the room, but Kazuya didn’t move. Lee stopped. The two remained staring at each other.

“May I please leave?” Lee said stiffly, after a long pause.

Kazuya regarded him with another long, slow look. He stopped leaning on the frame, and dropped a heavy hand onto Lee’s shoulder. Jin saw his uncle flinch. The hand snaked round and clasped the back of Lee’s neck.

“Of course, dear brother.” Kazuya pulled Lee’s head forward until his forehead pressed into Kazuya’s shoulder in a vague semblance of affection. He whispered something in Lee’s ear, and Jin didn’t miss the way his uncle’s hands curled into fists at his sides. When Kazuya released him, Lee took a quick step back. “Enjoy your trip out.” Kazuya smiled at Jin and Asuka, but it was really more like a bare of teeth. Jin’s heart sunk.

Kazuya’s eyes wandered to the scattered plaster on the floor, and then to the hole in the roof. Jin surreptitiously put his hands behind his back. Kazuya’s gaze rested on him. Jin squirmed and looked away. When he looked back up Kazuya had gone.

“Right!” Lee said with a brightness that didn’t hide the quaver in his voice. He was already reaching into his pocket and putting a cigarette into his mouth. He didn’t seem to have realised he’d got two out instead of one. By the time he did notice, he was already running a lighter over them. He frowned slightly, but then resorted to smoking them both together. He gave a small cough. Jin could see a tremble in his fingers.

“So, who likes cat cafes?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter with the story title fitted snuggly into the middle of it. 
> 
> Some typical brotherly affection for those who were missing it from my other fics. And Jin isn't sure if he's a kid or a world-weary 50 year old, but nothing new there. And Lee is definitely blocking that kick a la his TTT2 ending. I'm writing what I think will be the final chapter of this story at the moment, so you can expect 20 chapters total for this one :)


	16. Sunder

Yesterday, they’d spent a delightful afternoon surrounded by sleepy cats as they sipped milkshake and the afternoon sun glanced off fresh snow settling beyond the café window. The trip had only been slightly overshadowed by all the cats arching their backs and hissing whenever Jin got close to them. That and Lee chain-smoking through the whole event and trying to order tequila from the waitress. Asuka at least seemed to have enjoyed herself.

Jin was now walking down a G-Corp corridor to one of the main laboratories where genetic data was processed. The room had been off limits to all G-Corp guests until Jin asked Kazuya why. Since then, he’d been allowed in whenever he pleased. The corridors in this part of the building were all black marble floors and stone walls, with thin lights that ran as inset strips down either side, making the walls look like they’d been cracked open like eggshells. The corridors were well walked, but Jin suspected the mirror dark floors were swept clean each evening, because he never saw the scuffs his shoes left behind when he came back the next day.

He paused. His shoes squeaked to a stop on the marble. Up ahead, there was a raised voice coming from beyond the door. The hair on the back of Jin’s neck stood up. He felt a pressure in the air around him, like ozone crackling before a thunderstorm. He hurried to the door and pressed his hand to the palm recognition. A scanner swept over his print and the door slid open. Within was a room full of glowing observation screens on walls and computer terminals at desk islands. The room hung with a green effervescent light like foul mist above a dim swamp. Kazuya was leaning over a technician whose shirt was bunched together in his fist. He dragged the man close to his face. There was a cut on the technician’s cheekbone dribbling blood and Jin could see the start of a bruise shadowing purple under the man’s eye.

“What do you mean _gone_?” Kazuya hissed. His voice was soft, but there was absolute silence in the room, so he was painfully audible. Warnings lurched through Jin’s insides when he heard that tone of voice. He found himself rooted to the spot. That pressure was a lot heavier in here. He was very aware of the door sliding shut behind him, and the lock re-engaging. He found himself transfixed as he watched the way Kazuya brought the man’s face to within a centimetre of his own. There was a power in the room that froze everyone in place. Kazuya had a captive audience as he whispered, “information like that doesn’t just _vanish_.”

Then Kazuya shook the man violently. The man’s head hit his desk with a crack and a cry of pain fell from his lips. It was a pathetic wail of a sound. Kazuya pulled back his fist.

“An answer or that neck of yours snaps. _How. Has. This. Happened?_ ”

“Father.”

Kazuya’s eyes snapped up. One was infernal red, and the other pitch black. Jin refound himself. He walked to Kazuya’s side. He put his hand on his father’s readied fist.

“Let him go. Whatever the problem, this can’t solve it.”  
  


  
Kazuya’s stare bored into him. It was miles deep just then. Jin thought of the helipad. And fresh snow in the night sky. And the neon lights beneath. Kazuya had not dropped him.

The technician was released. The man crumbled into his chair and began bowing profusely both to Kazuya and Jin. Kazuya stood there, seething. His breath came fast through his nose. The pressure in the room was still heaving with snaps of electricity, but Jin felt it lessening, starting to dissipate. Jin realised Kazuya was trying to rein back his control from the brink. He decided to take matters into his own hands.

“Please explain to me what’s happened,” Jin said to a technician next to the one Kazuya had been traumatising. The woman’s eyes flicked to Kazuya, but when nothing more was said, she answered Jin.

“The last two weeks of research data on your genetics have gone missing, Mr Kazama.”

Jin’s eyes widened.

“…Two _weeks_ worth of data?” Jin rubbed his chin. He felt a throb of pulsating darkness behind him. He remembered he was meant to be easing Kazuya’s temper, not contributing to it. “And is it backed up anywhere?”

“Yes, Mr Kazama, but the backups have been wiped up to.”

“So this is a hacker, and not just negligence?”

Jin heard a snarl behind him. Kazuya booted an office chair. It sailed through the air and cracked an observation screen on the far side of the wall. Glass shattered and spread like spilt water on the black marble tiles. The screen flickered between green and grey, then winked out. Jin took a deep breath. All the workers’ eyes were fixed on the cracked screen. No one moved.

Jin turned to Kazuya.

“This is a setback, but it’s not the end of the world. We can try to retrieve the data, and in the meantime, you can take more of my blood to analyse and start over. In a fortnight’s time, regardless of whether we’ve found the hacker, you’ll have back all the data you lost.”

“And people wonder why I lose my temper,” Kazuya growled. “The _incompetency_ of this place. I’d have more success with a laboratory of one, run by me, with none of these _idiots_ slowing me down.” Kazuya gestured around the room wildly. His technicians shrunk back from him.

“Let’s think how to solve the problem,” Jin said. “Do many people know where to find this back-up information? Is it unusual for a hacker to know about that too?”

“Hardly anyone knows where the back-up data is stored.” Kazuya folded his arms. “So it’s someone close to me, or someone very good with computers. I have thousands of enemies, but hardly any know that you’re here in G-Corp and that I’m-” Kazuya stopped mid-sentence. The room crowded close with darkness again. The silent technicians around them all leaned further away from Kazuya. Jin found himself reassuring his own instincts not to fight or flee.

“Father..?” he said uncertainly. He took a step towards Kazuya, against all his better inclinations.

Kazuya pushed him aside roughly with one hand and stalked out of the room. Jin hurried to follow him. He had to lengthen his stride to keep up with Kazuya’s ferocious pace. They took the corridor back to an elevator. Jin swallowed when Kazuya hit a button for the level where the guest sleeping quarters were located. The elevator felt far too small with the two of them in it. Jin had a sinking feeling he might know where they were going.

“Whatever you’re planning-”

“Is entirely justified,” Kazuya snapped back at him.

Jin shut up after that.

The air around Kazuya shimmered and Jin could feel that hatred wearing on him. The cuffs on his wrists felt tight and uncomfortable. Jin tested his canines with his tongue, they were usually the first thing to go when he felt his devil side taking over. His teeth were still even, but he needed to be careful. Being this close to all this anger was calling to something inside him.

When the elevator door opened, Kazuya stormed out. He strode passed Jin’s room and then up to Lee’s door. He kicked it open with such force that the hinges burst off and the door flew inwards.  
  


  
Lee didn’t look up from where he was combing his damp hair in a mirror. He was in a silk dressing gown and fluffy slippers.

“Good morning, my dear Kazuya,” he said amiably. He stepped over the fallen door and kept brushing his hair.

Jin was left with the distinct impression that this might not be the first time Kazuya had entered a room in this fashion.

“You back-stabbing, conniving maggot!” Kazuya seethed. “How long have you been planning this, or was it always your intention to get into my company and steal my secrets!?” Kazuya plucked the comb from Lee’s hand and threw it over his shoulder. He thumped Lee’s shoulder with a fist, forcing him to turn to face him.

Lee gave Kazuya a bored look.

Jin approached his uncle and father cautiously.

“Let’s… not jump to any conclusions,” Jin put in.

“He did it!” Kazuya spat in Lee’s face. “Even when he worked for me, he couldn’t help sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, working behind my back when he thought I wasn’t looking. I know you undermined my plans with Michelle Chang, like I know you’re meddling in my affairs now!” Kazuya fumed in Lee’s face barely leaving any space between them. “Are you going to bother denying it?”

“Father…” Jin reproached.

“I don’t deny it,” Lee said idly. He kept Kazuya’s gaze.

Kazuya scoffed. Jin’s expression fell. He stepped towards his uncle.

“Why? I thought you agreed to Kazuya helping me?”

“I never agreed to such a thing,” Lee circled around his furious brother. He picked up his comb from where Kazuya had thrown it, and began to brush his hair again. “I agreed to stay here and abide by your reckless choices, Jin. I still support you in that, but you and Asuka have stumbled upon something that might work, and I think that should be given a chance first.”

“I… I don’t understand,” Jin said. “Why would you delete the data Kazuya was processing on my devil gene?”

“To delay my research,” Kazuya snapped. “He wants that other method tried first. So he set me back _weeks_ , because he can’t stand the idea of me successfully taking that gene from you for myself.”

Lee gave a brilliant smile, and tossed his hair once he’d finished combing it. He then shrugged out of his dressing gown and began to get dressed. Jin looked away, embarrassed that they’d burst in on his uncle’s privacy.  
  


  
Kazuya didn’t even seem to notice the intrusion.

“I should have known.” Kazuya’s voice had gone from raised to that quiet, deadly tone, that Jin was beginning to think might be worse. “Whenever I extend a hand, you’ve always got a knife behind your back.”

“Extend a hand?” Some of Lee’s imperiousness grated off as he rose to that. “When have you ever extended a hand except to punch someone down to the ground, Kaz.”

Jin’s heartbeat was picking up. He could feel that this conversation was going to escalate and get ugly quickly.

“I gave you a job _and_ let you keep a roof over your head,” Kazuya snarled.

“A roof that wasn’t yours to take away,” Lee returned coolly. “And are we really go to talk about twenty years ago? The rest of the world has moved on from then. Only _you_ insist on clinging to those days and raging about what you lost.”

“I let you come and stay here when you started ranting about me kidnapping Jin, I’ve even let you see some of the blood analysis! What have _you_ done? What have you _ever_ done for me? Name one thing! You’ve spent your life in my shadow, begging better people to let you keep your table scraps, and never showing a hint of loyalty or gratefulness for it!”

Lee’s eyes flashed and he stepped up into Kazuya’s space. He was mostly dressed now. Though the effect of the anger on his face was slightly undone by the presence of the half-open glittery disco shirt he’d left off buttoning up.

“You _dare_ ask me what I’ve done for you, Mishima Kazuya? _You_ , of all people?! You dare stand there before me and forget the _years_ that I put up with you and your sadism and violent tantrums! I _tried_ to be your brother. I _tried_ to see you as more than a monster. And all I got in return was humiliation and pain. I have given you more of my time than anyone else on this planet has, and, like an idiot, it took me such a very long time to realise that you’re not worth it. You can’t think about anyone other than yourself. Everything you do is to further your own selfish ends. Nothing is ever enough for you, you always have to have more, and when your actions cause those who stand with you to go up in flames, you don’t even blink an eye. You’ve done what Heihahchi never could. You made me hate you all on your own.”

Kazuya and Lee were face to face with each other, quivering with rage. Jin wondered faintly if this was what it felt like when your parents argued. He wondered if he should leave, or try to stop them, or try to calm them down. He felt small and helpless and confined to the sidelines of something that had been decades brewing. The stew of emotions whirling round the room was clouding his head and making it stuffy, chewing up his thoughts, and making him feel trapped in his own chest.

“Everything I’ve done was for _me?!_ ” Kazuya asked, incredulous. “Sure! I never stood between you and him. I never took the punishment meant-”

“We were children then, Kaz! How long do you expect me to stay indebted to you for that?! I thanked you, I stood by you, I worked for you, I did the terrible things that you asked of me, but that doesn’t give you free reign over my loyalty and my ambition. I had my own dreams! I am my own person! You can’t expect me to stay under your thumb forever, however grateful I was to you!”

“I didn’t expect you to stay under my thumb, but I did expect at least a _little_ more from you in return! I know you can’t even get revenge right, but fleeing Heihachi? To a desert island?! Did you even _think_ to check on Jun?”

Jin went cold. Beads of sweat stood out on the back of his neck.

“I had no idea about any of that!” Lee said heatedly, though some of the superiority had gone out of his voice as Kazuya finally hit a nerve. “If I had known-”

“Did you even look for her? Did you even look for _me_? You built your own company from the ground up! Why the fuck did I wake up in G-Corporation and not Violet Systems!?”

A pause. The thick anger in the air and the taste of imminent violence and the savage flash back and forth of decades worth of trouble between the brothers was making it hard for Jin to stay grounded. The metal on his wrists was so tight it hurt. He could feel a spot on his forehead starting to itch. When he reached up a hand to touch it, he realised his fingernails were black. He closed his eyes. Elongated canines pressed into his lower lip.

“Because I moved on, Kaz!” Lee finally got over the shock of Kazuya’s question and was now snapping back a retort that was still just as fierce. “I lost you, and I grieved you, and I moved on with my life! I lived twenty years without you, and without your Mishima trouble ruining everything for me. I lived under the radar from Father and I made something of myself without any charity from you or Father. You seem to think the world stopped when you left us, but it hasn’t! And you come back in and just try to start back up where you left off, crusading for power and vengeance. I should be glad! For years I felt guilty for not doing more to stop you walking your doomed end to that second idiotic tournament. But now that you’re back, and just the same as always, I’m glad! Every time I see your terrible life decisions, you remind me why I had to leave and start over and never look back!”

There was silence in the room now. Jin could feel Kazuya’s hatred filling the room in rolling waves, washing over him and pushing him further out to sea. He didn’t dare open his eyes. He needed to calm himself. He needed to get out of here.

“Jin?” He heard his uncle calling him. It sounded a long way away. Ah, things were already quite far gone then. Jin grimaced internally. Well, he supposed this was one way to stop his father and uncle arguing. Dread was snaking through his stomach. Terror settled on him like a sheet thrown from a balcony. It came drifting and floating, then covered him head to toe.

“Jin.” That was Kazuya now. He sounded concerned too. Jin liked it when he sounded concerned. It almost convinced him that there was some part of Kazuya still capable of emotion and care.

Jin opened his eyes. He couldn’t see much more than when his eyes were shut. Everything was hazy, as though the room were engulfed in a thick smoke. He could vaguely see Kazuya and Lee looking at him. They looked anxious and tasty.

Jin thought hard. That wasn’t what he’d meant to think. He needed to stay calm, in control, strong, and powerful.

His head pulsated with the beat of his own heart. He tried again. No thinking. Try no thinking. Stay empty, devoid of emotion, blank of desire, let there be nothing, nothing but hunger, hunger and hate, hate and rage. He felt his mouth pulled open into a smile. He hissed between his fangs.

He could hear the world so dimly.

“Chaolan, stay behind me.”

“I can handle myself.”

“I know you can, now do as I ask.”

There was movement before him. He swiped a claw out to stop everything moving so fast. There was a grunt of pain. He smelt blood. It smelled so good. He put out a long tongue and licked his lips. Then he ran his tongue over the edge of his teeth. He brought a talon back to his lips and licked it clean of blood.

“He’s… uh.”

“I’m well aware, Chaolan.”

“What are you going to do? Don’t hurt him! Last time, whatever you did hurt him…”

“He’s a demon! And he’s extremely dangerous. Now isn’t the time to get on your high horse about my methods.”

“Kaz, please. He had nightmares last time! He was in pain! You didn’t see him crying out in his sleep. Isn’t there anything else you can do?”

The conversation faded in and out of Jin’s hearing like a radio between channels. His vision was almost entirely dampened now. He felt like he was being pushed back. Back into a dark, empty non-space, where he hung in nothingness, with no light and no sensation. He was afraid in the darkness. He tried to call out or move forward, but he could hear nothing, and see nothing, and feel nothing. He curled up into a ball and tried to think of his mother. He thought of long, lonely Yakushima beaches and sunsets spread like stained, stretched silk over the ripples of a silver sea below. He thought of the deep trees with their vibrant mosses and the white stone of weathered bodhisattvas that leaned jaunty out of thick undergrowth. He thought of rivers clear and cold where young fish darted in and out of dappled shadows, and heavy wet heat that hung in the air in summer, and thunder black storms that shook the whole island and set the hillside ablaze with crashes of light and the rumbles of slumbering old spirits, and dark, dark nights, where the stars were scattered freckles that dusted the shoulders of mountains, shrugged in the fur of forests.

The darkness peeled back like a veil. Jin shrunk from the sudden sight before him. A monster filled his vision. Enormous leathery wings studded with red eyes were spread before him. The beast’s torso was plated with chitinous violet armour. An enormous eye peered out of its chest, and another was on its forehead. White bone horns curled out of its head. Jin let out a cry of dismay and staggered back from the sight. All the monster’s eyes began to glow. Jin shrunk back further, he stumbled over something. He looked down and saw a chain. It pulled tight, ensnaring his ankle. Something else hit him hard in the side of his head and made him reel.  
  


“Oops.” He heard a female voice somewhere over on his right.  
  


More chains tangled in his horns. He could feel his rage sliding back to the forefront of his thoughts. The monster before him launched itself at him. Jin hit the ground and hissed in pain. The monster dug its talons into him and sat on his chest. Jin cried out. He could see the twitching tail of the beast flicking behind it. A clawed hand grabbed his jaw. Jin tried to shoot a laser out of his forehead, but that hand forced his chin up and the hard light glanced up into the roof instead, showering him with debris. He could feel his limbs being tied down, wound around with thick, cold, iron chains. Lethargy sunk through him. He tried to shake his head free, but talons tightened on his chin, forcing his head further back against the floor. He choked against the pressure on his throat.

He struggled again and the pressure against his windpipe increased further. He gasped at the lack of air. That grip was tight now and painful. His breath rasped as it tried to pass through his throat. His body stuttered as it tried and failed to breathe.

“F-father!” He managed to stammer out. The hand on his neck withdrew abruptly. It gave Jin all the chance he needed. He shot a laser straight into the monster’s chest and into the sensitive eye that peered out of the cracks in its armour. The demon was hurled back. It howled as it clutched its chest and hunched over. Jin leapt forward. A snarl clashed out of his mouth and his wings beat the air. Before he could reach the monster, he was snapped back to the ground. Chains from all different directions dragged him down. He was brought down to his knees and felt energy drain from him like a floodgate had been opened.

The beast before him slid back into the shape of Mishima Kazuya. His suit clung to him in tatters. He staggered upright. There were streaks of bleeding claw marks across his chest. He limped towards Jin. Despite the injury, he still held a terrible power in the way he walked. He came bearing down towards Jin now, towering over him. Jin snarled and snapped, tugging at his chains as he writhed on the floor. Kazuya stopped before him and looked down. He drew back his hand, then backhanded Jin with a fist crashed into a knockout point. The world went to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't air your dirty laundry in front of your anxious demon child.  
> I've been looking forward to giving Lee and Kaz the mother of all arguments.  
> Asuka was in this chapter for one line whilst she lobbed a chain at Jin's head.  
> Thanks very much for all the reviews and comments! <3 I read and love them all! I've been writing a few more Tekken short stories recently. The last one was about [Jin meeting Violet for the first time before the fourth Iron Fist Tournament](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21407845/chapters/57332041).


	17. Torment

When Jin awoke, there was no pleasant bed, and no coffee machine, and no Lee Chaolan talking to him in calm, soothing tones.

There was only more darkness.

When he moved, he heard chains rattle. There was stone beneath him. His body ached with old bruises and stiffness deep in his muscles. A musty, mossy smell was in the closeted air. He felt with his fingernails along the cracks between stones in the floor. His fingers hit a wooden bowl that slopped with water. He leaned down with difficulty and put cracked lips to the water. The water felt so good and his throat so achingly dry. When he sat back up, water ran down his chin. He felt forward again with his fingers, trying to find a wall or door. Before he could find either, he found himself snagged to a stop. There were chains shackled to his wrists and ankles and wound around his limbs stopping him from going any further. He sat down on the cold floor. His arms clanked as they hit the floor and hung heavy at his sides.

He tried to think. He had been upset. His father and uncle had been arguing so fiercely, he’d thought they would come to blows. The things afterwards were hazy, slipping in and out of recollection. He remembered the terrifying sight of Kazuya in his devil form. He remembered chains dragging him down, binding him to the floor so that he couldn’t defend himself from that monster. The rest was blurred.

He sat for a long time, feeling all the distinct aches in his muscles and a rumbling hunger to match his thirst. His wrists were raw from the chafing shackles on them. He wondered how long he had been here. He wondered how much longer he would have to stay here. In the faceless, inky dark, he begun to wonder if he was really awake at all. Perhaps he was still in the back of his own mind, and that devil was controlling him,… making him do unspeakable things.  
  


  
He noticed a single red dot up high above him. He got a sudden shiver in the damp chill. He tried to wrap his arms around himself but again the chains didn’t give him the space. He looked up at that dot.  
  


  
“Father?” His voice was thin and parched. As he called out, another recollection hit him. He remembered fractions from just before he blacked out. He remembered calling Kazuya ‘father’ and the look that had passed over Kazuya’s face. He remembered the way the red had died down in his father’s eyes. He remembered the way Kazuya had immediately released him and the confusion and shame even that had showed in that demonoid face. He remembered the howl of pain that had filled the air when he shot Kazuya in the chest with a beam of light.

And the betrayal in his eyes.

Jin’s composure wilted.   
  
  


“I’m sorry!” he called into the darkness.

There was nothing. Only silence.

Jin could feel a dragging torpor running through him. There were a lot more chains than just his usual cuffs. His whole body felt heavy, like he was traipsing through thick undergrowth in a dawn that would never quite break. _So tired._ He tried to focus on the texture of the hard stone beneath his knees and the crackle of old flames and burnt wood about him. He blinked. _Not there. Don’t think of there._ Inhuman footprints pressed into the mud. Broken glass and pottery cracked open around him. The collapsed remains of his home, torn and shattered, spread like bones on a heath. He brought himself back to the stone prison. _Stay here. Stay present. Stay focussed._ Smoke stung his nostrils and rain splattered on his cheeks. Water mixed with beads of blood on his forehead and ran down the lines in his face. He blinked and shivered and watched the way waxy leaves bent in the wind and rain.

He shuddered as he slipped in and out of memory and nightmare, unable to summon enough strength of will to order his thoughts. The uncomfortable chains kept him just this side of consciousness and unable to slide into welcome nothingness.

Everything was beyond his control. The rain was washing away the story of the scene about him before he could muster the strength to move. Droplets collected on his face as he lay on the ground, rolling down his nose and dripping off his chin. The weight of a new kind of loneliness was on his eyelids and heavy on his lashes. He knew without looking that she was gone. He could feel her absent not just from nearby, but from everywhere. His mother was removed from the world. Erased. Like she’d been a mark on a page that could be lifted off, and not the very earth beneath his feet: his foundations, his rock, his strength, his world. He lay trembling, unable to move, trapped in that paralysis with terror washing over him. He felt like a carcass washed up on the shore, all decaying and empty, buffeted by the ebb and flow of the tide, slowly disintegrating as the elements rolled over him.

He was on the stone floor with heavy chains and a heavy thirst and heavy weariness. He was in the mud under a lightening cracked sky and the rain tasted salty. He was shivering with cold and something was filling the echoes with small unhappy noises like an animal in pain. The wind was bending trees over backwards and tearing at the clothes on his back. There was old blood on his lip that tasted a little like rust. His eyes were so tired. If only he could sleep. If only he could rest forever.

The door creaked open and let in a blazing line of white light that spiked through Jin’s eyes like a nail. He tried to raise a hand to block out the light, but it felt so heavy. He only succeeded in shifting his chains with a slow clink.

When his eyes adjusted, he could see Kazuya. He was stiff, like something pained him. His face was wreathed in shadows, but Jin saw enough to note a calculating, callous look on his face. His red eye glowed dimly in the dark.

Jin looked up at him. His words had to roll from somewhere in the back of his head to get off his tongue. He felt consciousness lurching this way and that as it threatened to depart him.

“Sorry…” His voice was rough and scratchy. He wondered again how long he’d been here. “I didn’t mean to do what I did. I wasn’t in control. Sorry.” He tried to bow in apology, but his body more just hung limply on its chains.

Kazuya said nothing. Jin wanted to ask where he was, and why he was in here. He wanted to say he was cold, and that in the darkness his fears kept coming to him like he was fifteen years old again. Instead he tried to pull himself together. He pushed himself to kneel more upright and inched forward until his arms were dragged out either side of him by the taught chains. He had no shirt he realised now, and the rest of his clothes were suffering as they always did post a transformation. “Please, say something,” he said to the silhouette.

“You will be remaining here until my research on you is complete.” Kazuya’s voice was different: colder, more distant,… hurt, Jin realised.

“Here?” Jin tried to keep the panic from his voice.

“You are a danger to yourself and to others.”

“We can use more chains! We can use more chains and I can go back to the laboratory-!” He couldn’t stay here, not in this place where past and present merged and he wandered freely through horrors he tried to forget. He couldn’t calm his own thoughts and the chains weighed on his mind like a tonne weight, pressing him down into drowning waters.

“You are staying here.”

Jin tugged on his chains and defiance flared up in him.

“You-… you can’t! Uncle Lee-”

“Your uncle has become surprisingly compliant now that I have you in my keep in a place beyond his knowing. He’s even been so kind as to return my missing data to me and is now heading up the research division on your genetics.”

“You’re-… you’re _blackmailing_ him?... With _me_?”

“And even your cousin Asuka has agreed to do her part. She’s donating some of her most interesting Kazama blood for G-Corp to study.”

“Why are you doing this!?” Jin tugged at his chains. “The ritual is ready! We can perform it any time! If you just let us go, or gave us the resources to do it…!”

Kazuya took a menacing step forward.

“Be thankful I haven’t resorted to taking that gene from your dead body!”

“Father,… please…”

“Don’t call me that!” Kazuya snapped.

Jin wilted. He looked through his fringe at the man above him. The cold light lit up the lines of Kazuya’s cheekbones and the deep cracks of the frown in his face. His eye spilled an unearthly red light onto his features and sharpened the black shadows in his expression.

“I’m sorry,” Jin whispered. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t mean-”

“Hurt?” Kazuya scoffed, “as if you could. You are weak, Kazama Jin-”

“I wasn’t in control! I promise you I wouldn’t have done that to you if I was! I would never-”

“Oh? You weren’t in control? As if your devil self would call me ‘father’. That’s a manipulative trick you’ve been employing just as regular Kazama Jin. You can’t fool me, brat!” Jin could hear the guarded tone in Kazuya’s voice beneath the layers of scorn. Kazuya had pulled back from hurting him. Even through the devilish features snarling beneath him, he had heard Jin’s voice. Jin hadn’t fully had time to process how much it must have hurt his father to then have been attacked after showing that mercy.

“I was wrestling for control! I was there, but not in control! I did call out for you, but it wasn’t me that acted after! I wasn’t trying to manipulate you... I wouldn’t do that! I wouldn’t ever-”

“None of that matters now,” Kazuya snapped. “I should have chained you like the animal that you are from the very start.”

“I wasn’t trying to manipulate you, please believe me. When you call me ‘son’ it…” Jin struggled to put into words the things that happened inside him whenever Kazuya was gentler with him. “… It means a lot. It means a lot to me. I want to see was she saw. I want… I wanted to be close to you. I wanted to know my father. Don’t do this. Don’t shut me out because I made a mistake! Don’t hurt Uncle Lee and Asuka because I got it wrong…”

“I will return when I have the results I need to extract my devil gene from you,” Kazuya said coolly. He turned his back on Jin and walked into the bright, obscuring light.

“Wait! Don’t leave me here!” Jin panicked. He saw Kazuya pause. He pushed his opportunity whilst he could. “I can’t stand it! Everything is so loud in my head. Memories… With these chains on I can’t-…. I can’t-… Don’t leave me here alone… Please…”

When Kazuya turned back, he had that unpleasant half smirk on his face. He thumped his fist into his open hand.

“Want me to knock you out cold so you’re less afraid of the dark?”

“Yes!” Jin looked up at him desperately. Kazuya’s smirk faltered. There was a pause.

“Fine.” Kazuya was blank and emotionless. He raised his fist and stepped towards Jin.

The way he looked just then, fist pulled back, with the white light behind him, walking purposefully forward, took Jin back to a startlingly similar recollection. The lucidity of the present faded, and in that moment all Jin could see was Heihachi. He shrunk back. The similarity was uncanny. Or maybe it was the chains and the exhaustion. Or maybe the light playing tricks. He shook his head and tried to bring back the present. Heihachi still walked towards him. It was unmistakably him – his swagger, his build, his pride, his coldness. Jin tried to pull back from him, but Tekken Force soldiers gripped him and held him still. He was looking down the barrel of that gun for the thousandth time.

_No, no, no. I don’t understand what I did wrong! I did everything you asked! Why isn’t it enough! Why aren’t I enough? Grandfather! Don’t-!_

Or maybe he didn’t just think that. Did he say that out loud? It didn’t matter anyway. He knew how this ended. Sometimes he wondered if he really remembered what that bullet entering his skull felt like, or if he’d reconstructed the feeling from relived nightmares. He had a distinct sensation of cold, cold metal. It never splintered the bone, but rather made it cave in, like a collapsing black hole, sucking his mind into a funnel, where events and consciousness folded together and ran into one, sliding away like sand through an hourglass until-

Nothing.

  
  
No amount of pleading ever changed those events. He could hear his own voice even now, begging Heihachi like it never had a chance to in reality. In dreams it was always slowed down. His tears had time to form and dread had time to pile into him until he was so laden with terror that his whole body was shaking. Nothing he’d learned since did enough to explain why what had happened that night had happened. Heihachi was dead now. He’d never hear from his Grandfather’s mouth why he’d done what he’d done. He’d never know if the years he’d lived with him had had any genuine affection in them, or were just one long messed up prelude to what would come after.

The confused place between here and then began to slowly recede.

He was cold again and shivering.

The heavy, heavy weight of those chains had decreased. It was still dark. He wasn’t sure if he was alone again, or if he had been shot, or if he was in that void place that devil pushed him to when it took over. A calloused hand brushed his fringe out of his face. There was warmth next to him. Jin clung to it. He could feel the silken fabric of a shirt under his cheek.

“I’m not him. I’m not Heihachi.” Jin could hear a deep, quiet voice. It was so uncharacteristically gentle, that it took him a moment to recognise as Kazuya’s. “He’s gone. He’s dead. He can’t hurt us anymore.” The words were murmured like a distant lullaby.

Jin lay still, gradually drawing his senses together: piecing together that he was still on that stone floor, that the chains were gone, that he was collected tight into Kazuya’s arms, that he was so cold his teeth were clattering in his mouth, that the steady drum in his head was his father’s heartbeat coming strong through his chest.

That hand ran back through his hair again, repetitive and calming.

“S-sorry,” Jin said through chattering teeth. “A-about before-”

“Hush.”

Jin hushed. The darkness didn’t feel so lonely now. The past and present were finally separating back into their correct places. Without those cursed chains on him, he could finally take charge of his thoughts and fears and order them. He kept his eyes closed and drew his breath in, deep and even, then out slowly. He felt the arms around him tighten as if afraid that he’d slip out and be lost.

“I’m not like Heihachi.”

Kazuya didn’t sound very certain as he said that. It sounded more like a question than a statement. Jin pressed his face into his father’s clothes instead of answering. It felt warm and safe and right in a way that nothing had since he was fifteen and his mother was with him. It felt like a home that he didn’t even know he’d been looking for. Nothing could hurt him here. The terrible choices he’d made could be forgiven. The burdens he carried could be shared. The trust he needed to give to someone could still be received.

A long silence passed.

“I’ll let you do the ritual,” Kazuya said quietly as he held him. “Then you need to go. Go far away from here and from me. When you are near, this same weakness that I felt around her is with me. I can’t do all the things I need to when I’m being dragged down by these… these feelings.”

Jin said nothing. The future didn’t matter so much to him just then. He had all he wanted in that moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chaining your son in a dungeon and blackmailing your brother isn't a great look but hear me out he held him in the end ok.  
> The full draft of this story is finished :) We're ramping up to the climax now, and I still have some surprises in hand for you.  
> Thanks again for the comments and love! I also put up another short story in Iron Fist and Iron Will :)


	18. Raw

They were back in the large hall where Lee and Jin had sparred. The hall looked very different now. It was spread with prayer flags and red paper charms and half a dozen incense burners. A number of hired musicians in ornate garb sat in two lines facing each other, with a large space between them.

Kazuya stood with his arms folded, looking dubiously at the whole affair. Lee stood next to him with an almost mirrored expression. They weren’t speaking to each other since Kazuya had imprisoned Jin in the depths of G-Corp. Even after releasing him, Lee still hadn’t spoken a word to his brother. They co-ordinated with one another in silence. They managed this so efficiently that Jin half wished they’d fallen out weeks ago.

  
  
Asuka was reading over a wad of pages in the corner. She was dressed in her hakama and full gi top. Jin could see by the way her fingers twitched that she was agitated. Her eyes narrowed and she put her tongue out as she read. Jin had been dragged out of the corridor in chains and vanished for the better part of three days. Asuka wasn’t the only one who looked like she’d been shaken by that. Jin glanced back at the thin-lipped expression his uncle was wearing, and the haggard look to his usually pristine features. Kazuya had managed to make firm enemies of both Lee and Asuka. Jin knew they were only here for him, and that their patience had worn thin.

He went over to Asuka and stood near her.  
  


  
“I’m fine,” she said irritably.

“I never said you weren’t.”

  
  
She looked over her papers at him.

“You look terrible,” she remarked.

“Thanks.”

“You look like you haven’t eaten in days.”

“I ate this morning.” Jin had been ravenous this morning. It had indeed been some time since he’d eaten before that, but he didn’t need to worry Asuka and Lee any further. “I’m sorry I worried you,” he added, speaking in an undertone so as not to draw the attention of his uncle and father as they finished directing the ritual preparations.

“I wasn’t _worried_ , Jin.” Her eyes flashed. “I was _threatened._ He used your safety as a way to make us do everything he asked.”

“I know… and I know that can’t have been easy but-”

“It wasn’t.” She wheeled on him. “It sucked, Jin!” She brushed the back of her hand over her eyes. Jin faltered. Asuka looked so young just then. He thought of when he’d been her age, looking up to Heihachi for any comfort and stability, eager to get things right and prove that he was still strong despite the lot life had handed him. How many times had he put on a face that was tough and more confident than the anxious thing he’d been inside?

“I’m sorry,” he said. She concentrated hard on the notes in front of her as she collected herself. “I appreciate you being here for me. Thank-you for trying to help me. When I asked you here, I wasn’t thinking of your safety. It was selfish of me. I wasn’t thinking of how Kazuya might use the situation to his advantage. If I had, I never would have-”

Asuka sniffed and punched his arm lightly.

“You’re a super idiot, Jin. Like I’m going to let your goon old man stop me from doing what I can. Kazamas stick together. You gotta help a guy out if you can. We ain’t no Mishimas. Now let me memorise this dumb dance or I might accidently turn you into a frog with the wrong magic spell.”

“Asuka, that’s not how it works, it-”

“Gotcha.” She winked at him. Jin felt lighter. He smiled and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Thank-you,” he said again. She gave him a more steady smile back, and he was glad to see her eyes were dryer.

Jin looked back to his uncle and father. Lee strode over to the musicians’ director. As he did, Jin noticed Kazuya was summoning him with a finger. He had a look in his eye that prompted Jin to scowl. He stalked to his father’s side.

“You said you’d let me do this,” Jin said before his father could speak, “don’t you dare back down on this now. Everything is ready. I need this.” He hadn’t dared call Kazuya ‘father’ again after he snapped at him not to in that cell. Even though something had passed between them and Jin felt safer around him, he still had a pool of guilt in his chest over attacking Kazuya when his guard was down. He cringed internally at the idea of letting himself have that term of address when he’d been reprimanded for it.

“This ritual…” Kazuya started. Jin gave him a black stare. Kazuya huffed at his expression. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ve been thinking. And, there’s something I didn’t tell you before. This ritual… there are things you don’t understand about it.” Jin’s anger built inside him. He’d been half expecting something like this, but he’d hoped for better from Kazuya after the tenderness he’d shown him in that cell. “This ritual,” Kazuya continued, and he looked troubled now, “it… it makes you confront the things you’ve done: the things that you’ve done that you don’t remember: the things you’ve done whilst you were a devil.”

Jin folded his arms and put out his lower lip stubbornly.

“So what?”

“You’ll see things you didn’t know you’d done. Terrible things. You’ll have that weight on you, that guilt.”

“I deserve it.” Jin blew his fringe out of his face. “I did those things, so I have to remember them and own up to them.”

“Don’t be idiotic,” Kazuya snapped at him. Jin faltered. “They’re not _your_ fault if you were completely out of control. Didn’t I tell you your devil had an opposing personality to you? These aren’t things you both wished for, these are the actions of a monster that seized control of you. You will have memories implanted in you that are not your burden to carry. I know some of the things you’ll see… And if you can’t hack your guilt complex over what you’ve done whilst conscious, there’s no way you’re going to hold up with what you’ll see in that ritual.”

Jin’s arms unfolded. He swallowed. Kazuya’s words shook him, but he wasn’t about to have a change of heart now.

“I’ll-… I’ll just have to learn to deal with it,” he said, though some of his confidence had left him.

“You won’t _deal_ with it. You’ll be a different person. This will crush you. That creature has hurt people you care about deeply. It’s done things that… things that Kazama Jin doesn’t need to carry around on his shoulders.” Kazuya looked angry now, frustrated.

“You’re just trying to talk me out of this. You’re always trying to manipulate me for your own ends! At least I’ll be in control of my actions, at least I-” But Jin was going back over their conversations together. That moment Kazuya had told him of reports that his devil counterpart had eaten someone… What if that had really happened? What if it had been multiple people? He glanced towards the lines of musicians tuning their instruments and the attendants checking incense braziers and Asuka practicing steps of a dance from a page she held out before her. The truth felt like a heavy blade hovering just above them. When he took up position between them all, it would come down on his unsuspecting body, severing the last of his innocence from the terrible thing he’d become. Devil would be gone, but the things it had done would stay and stay and stay.

“Let me take this from you.” Kazuya’s voice was soft. When Jin looked back, his father had taken a step closer. “Let me take away this curse for you. It will be so easy, so simple. And it will save you the pain of this ritual.”

Jin’s eyes narrowed. So that was where this was headed. He shook his head firmly.

“I told you _no_! I don’t want you to have that full devil inside you! You don’t even know what it’ll do to you and whether you’ll be able to control it! Stop trying to play me and frighten me into give you what you want!”

“I’m not thinking of that-”

“You are! You’ve been hunting me down for this gene for years! You just can’t stand the idea of losing what you care about most!” Jin’s voice was raised now, and he could feel eyes on him. He didn’t care. He hated the way Kazuya toyed with his desire to be close to him. He hated the way that he stood there looking so calm and collected whilst Jin felt like he was on the verge of tears. He hated the way that every time Kazuya let him feel like he was real family, ulterior motives of power and ambition and control were veiled in his intentions. Jin blinked his eyes quickly. Lee had kept warning him about this. He’d told him time and time again-

Fingertips touched Jin’s cheek and brought him out of that avalanche of thought. Kazuya turned his face towards him.

“It’s true. I can’t stand the idea of losing what I care about most.” He said it very quietly.

Tears immediately bloomed in Jin’s eyes and started to run silently down his face. They were partly because he’d ached to hear something like that from Kazuya for a long time now, and partly because he couldn’t know if these were more empty words just leading him on. He looked at Kazuya and said nothing. A teardrop clung to his chin. Kazuya wiped it off.

“Let me take this from you,” he said again. “Let me take it from you and I will…” Kazuya looked over at the ritual preparations. He hesitated. Then he returned his gaze to Jin. “I’ll do the ritual myself. You can be rid of it without experiencing those memories or having them haunt you.”

Jin shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. His shoulders quivered.

“You don’t believe me?” Kazuya gave a small, bitter laugh. “I can hardly blame you. But you’re a Kazama. You can know the truth about my emotions if you try.”

Jin tried to keep his voice steady.

“I-I can’t do that. My mother had that gift, not me.”

“You have it. As does your cousin. Each of you a little differently, but it’s there. Come. See for yourself.”

Jin knew Asuka and Lee would be watching. He knew they were angry with him for the chances he kept giving Kazuya. He knew they felt like he belittled their struggles and took their support for granted. He reached out his hands uncertainly. He paused, waiting for Kazuya’s permission to proceed. Kazuya nodded. Jin placed his hands, one on either side of Kazuya’s face. His skin was coarse and Jin could feel rough scars under his fingers. He closed his eyes.

Things came to him. Jumbled pictures and scenes. Fragments of memories that slipped to him like half-remembered dreams. An office on a hot summer morning. A much younger Lee Chaolan handing him paperwork anxiously. The serious, stern gaze of Kazama Jun in a functional uniform and the way the heaviness of the room rolled back around her like oil dispersed by water. A luxurious apartment with handsome mirrors and a quilted bed. Jun turning to see him in a floor length gown of pearl blue and a smile so soft it broke down mountains inside him. An overgrown path beneath a tangle of trees and humid heat. Wilting salad leaves in his arms and Jun flashing in and out of sight as she led the way. Her laughter whenever she turned back and glimpsed him stamping uphill with his unusual burden. A brimming filling his chest, like it was so full of love it might burst. A promise settling in his bones that he’d never stop walking that hill, so long as she was one step ahead of him.

Jin drew his hands away. He looked at Kazuya.

“Well?” his father asked. “Can you at least feel that I’m being honest with you?”

Jin wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t sure what Kazuya had been expecting him to feel. But in a way it didn’t matter. He’d seen what he needed to anyway. Jin nodded slowly.

“Let me take this from you,” Kazuya said again, more gently this time.

Jin nodded.

“What if you’re different afterwards though,” Jin asked, “and you decide…”

“The last time I decided to be rid of it, I had the full devil gene inside me.”

“My mother was there though. And she’s a lot stronger than me.”

Kazuya gave a huff of a laugh.

“You’re twenty-one, aren’t you?” Jin nodded in response to that. “When I knew your mother, she was just one year older than you are now. You’re a lot like her. The same strong determination. The same irritating tugging at my conscience. But you don’t need to keep looking up to people, Jin. You don’t need to look for her, or to try and find her replacement in others. You’re strong. It wasn’t Kazama Jun that brought me to this decision this time. It was you. It was my son. Don’t dismiss your influence so lightly.”

Kazuya turned away from him and surveyed the hall with a practical eye, already moving on to logistical arrangements.

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t attempt to be somewhat swift in getting the ritual underway as soon as I’ve taken your gene from you,” Kazuya added.

Jin watched him, still not quite believing this was really happening. He tried to keep a lid on all the insecurities that Kazuya’s words touched on: hearing praise from him, hearing him call him son, hearing him compare him to his mother… Jin was already so far in that he knew he couldn’t say no even if he thought he ought to. He was caught up in dreams of waking up in safety after he’d been afraid, with the feel of silk under his cheek and strong arms keeping out the world. He wanted to trust and never let go. He wanted to have what he’d had for a few brief moments in that cell.

“When I let you take my gene – I won’t be able to hold you to your promise. No one will. You’ll be unstoppable…”

“Are you forgetting that I’m the one man on earth who shares a body with a demon and subdues it to _my_ will? I am many things, but I’ve never seen the need for duplicity. Heihachi was always the one who liked to present himself as magnanimous whilst double dealing behind everyone’s backs. I’ve never shied away from what I am. I’ve done terrible things. And I’ve made terrible promises. Promises of revenge. Promises to get back everything that was taken from me. But I’ve never broken a promise.” Kazuya gave a smirk. “Ask Chaolan.”

“You’ll really give it all up? Just so that I don’t have to experience the things my devil has done?”

Kazuya turned back to him. Jin could see things in his eyes: a wrestling, a struggle, a fight in so many directions, but also a calm certainty.

“The things we remember haunt us. They turn us into people we never really intended to be. They set intentions inside us that will drive us for the rest of our lives. I wanted Heihachi to suffer as I did. I never planned for anyone else to suffer too. It just got away from me. And the more it happened the less it mattered. I never wanted this for you.”

Jin couldn’t form any words in response to that. Instead he just looked at Kazuya dumbly.

“We should be quick,” Kazuya said, breaking the moment for him. “Before Chaolan comes over and hears what we intend to do.” Jin nodded. “Come here.”

Jin stepped closer. “Tell me what to do.”

“Relax. Just be you. Be calm. And trust me.” Kazuya lifted his chin up with a finger and Jin’s eyes fluttered shut. Then he felt Kazuya’s other hand cover over the tattoo on his bicep.

Jin felt that tug again, like he had on the helipad that night. Ropes untethered inside him, and he felt them running through his fingers like kite strings. Something shifted in him. Racing clouds on a windy day skated far above him. Shadows were tugged out of their corners and laid bar beneath a blue sky.

“That’s it,” Kazuya said. His voice was gentle and comforting. Jin let it take him far away. “Let me take it all away. You’ve suffered enough.”

Jin’s composure began to wilt. He could feel something rushing out of him now, like ink squeezed from a sponge, like clods of earth beneath him becoming a landslide, like gates opening that had stopped up a river for years. Kazuya’s other arm caught him and held him upright.

A voice sounded far away – his uncle, concerned.

The rush had subsided now and was more like a thread being drawn out of him, unravelling something tightly sewn together, until the last parts of him started to simply fall apart. Scattered iron filings throughout his soul dragged themselves to the hand on his arm pulling poison out of his very veins.

“Kazuya! What are you-…?” Lee sounded so far away.

In Jin’s mind, places that had been night for as long has he could remember were parting clouds and becoming bright sunshine. He could see the sky. He could smell the air. He could taste fresh scents on a cool breeze. He could feel warmth. He could feel whole. He felt so much lighter than he could ever remember. The relief filling him was so enormous that he immediately felt tears begin to roll down his cheeks again.

“Am I hurting you?” Kazuya murmured.

Jin shook his head.

“Kazuya!” Lee sounded furious. Jin could hear him running across the hall.

Kazuya gripped him harder and Jin felt that last trailing thread wisp from his mind like the memory of rainclouds passing over the horizon. Kazuya released him.

They both stumbled back.

“What have you done!?” Lee shouted.

“I’m alright, Uncle,” Jin said blearily. His eyes opened. He was on his knees. The hall was vague and blurred. But bright. So bright. The breath that hit his lungs was like chill winter on mountain tops. Jin watched with some confusion as his uncle moved straight passed him and went to Kazuya.

Lee put his arms around Kazuya, steadying him as his head tossed back, lips twitching and eyes rolling up to show their whites.

“Kaz…!” Lee clasped his hand as he helped Kazuya sink to the ground. “I told you this was too dangerous, I told you-…”

Jin looked down at his arm. His hated devil tattoo was gone. Then he looked at his uncle and father. He felt clear and clean for the first time in years. But the deep roots of guilt reached up, as they always had, to choke him.

“He said… he said it would be fine!” Jin got up unsteadily and took a step towards them. He wanted to check on Kazuya, but the protective way Lee was curled around his brother made Jin rethink. “He said he would do the ritual in my place! He said…-”

Lee shot him a black look, then returned his attention to Kazuya.

“Kaz…” Lee said again, and brushed a stray hair from his face like the way he did for Jin. “Talk to me.”

Kazuya’s eyes fell shut. Jin saw Lee’s hand tighten on his brother’s as he cradled him in his lap. Lee swallowed and Jin noticed that his uncle barely matched his immaculate suit and brilliantly combed hair. His eyes were haunted and his face was shadowed with the past and a thousand experiences that Jin could not start to imagine. There was a weariness in his shoulders and Jin wondered how he’d ever managed to miss the weight of that burden pressing on his uncle.

Kazuya stirred in Lee’s arms. His brown skin was a map of scars under the pale overhead lighting. His eyes flickered open.

They were both red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple of Zen Gardens of the Heart refs in here :) And hopefully you're all not sure whether to hug Jin or slap him for all the trust he keeps giving Kaz. Lee and Asuka are definitely on the slap him side. Two more chapters left of this story. Thank you for all comments from reviewers old and new! I'm really enjoying all your comments and your collective anger and care for Jin. And the surprising number of you who feel for Kaz. I think that's my fault because I love the guy. That's fine though, you can both love and hate an asshole all at once <3


	19. Dawn

Jin’s heart raced. The winter sun came in bright through high windows. Dust motes hung in the cool, clean sunbeams. There was a stillness to the air. There were colours Jin never remembered noticing before – the strains of red, russet and auburn in the parquet wood grain; the blue shadows in the pale, flowing robes of the musicians; the white of the headband Asuka had used to tie her hair out of her eyes, so very similar to the way his mother used to.

Something moved inside him. His emotions felt close, bubbling below a surface. Sights and sounds and smell and touch felt close. The world felt close.

Lee was kneeling next to Kazuya with an arm about him that looked like it was keeping him upright.

  
“Uncle…” Jin approached them.

“Ensure the ritual is ready to start,” Lee ordered. His eyes stayed on Kazuya.

Jin gave him a fleeting look before hurrying to obey. He brushed his eyes as he half ran to Asuka’s side. Everything inside him was a mess. He wasn’t sure if he was happy or devastated. He wasn’t sure if he’d done the right thing or a selfish thing. He felt free and uncontrollably elated but at the same time afraid and filled with guilt.

“We have to start. Kazuya’s doing the ritual instead of me.”  
  


  
If Asuka found either his words or his manner odd, she didn’t say so, she simply nodded and went to the head musician.

Jin watched as Lee tentatively helped Kazuya stand. Even from this distance, Jin could see that both his father’s eyes were glowing rubies. Kazuya had an arm looped around Lee’s shoulders and some of his usually neat appearance was coming undone. Hair escaped from his smoothed backed gel, and his waistcoat was crooked and his shirt askew. A mirthless, jaunty smirk kept twitching on his lips. When he looked at Jin, there was a burning behind his intense gaze, but nothing more. Jin felt no stirring of darkness. No strings of hatred strummed in his soul. Kazuya’s eyes turned away from him, disinterested. Jin tried not to let that crush him. Of course Kazuya wouldn’t be feeling himself right now. They’d known he might act differently once he took that devil fully inside him.

_What if it was only ever the Devil Gene he was interested in? What if, without it, I’m of no interest to him?_

A shiver passed through him. Jin felt cold all the way through. All those gentler things Kazuya had offered him, all those glimpses of affection that somewhere along the line had become like the air Jin needed to breathe. What if that was all just to push him to here? Kazuya had everything he wanted now. There was no one in this room, possibly no one on the planet even, who could stop him from doing whatever he wished.

Jin swallowed. He watched as Lee helped Kazuya to kneel between the two lines of musicians. As he lowered him to the ground, Kazuya began to laugh softly. His laughter got louder, until he threw back his head and the hall was filled with the unhinged sound of his cackling.

“Uncle…” Jin warned. Lee was too close. Kazuya was tipping over the edge and everyone knew it.

“Start the ritual,” Lee said.

“Uncle…”

“Start it!” Lee’s eyes flashed at Jin. Then he added more quietly, “I’m not leaving him again.” He shifted until he was kneeling next to Kazuya. He murmured softly to him. Kazuya’s eyes continued to glow a pupilless red, though his laughter did subside a little.

The musicians all simultaneously raised blindfolds to their eyes and bound them at the back of their heads. Then one, dressed in scarlet and white robes, lifted a cluster of bamboo pipes to his lips. The haunting discordant drone of a sho started up. Almost immediately at the sound, Kazuya sat bolt upright. His eyes were wide as though struck by a sharp recollection. The heavy cry of a double reed flute melded with the sho, creating a thick, otherworldly song in the air. Over the top of all this came the dragon flute with its simple, clear notes, like water running over the heavy timbre of the music. Twisting incense curled in the air, rich and fragrant and thickening senses, blurring them into one, as it rose as a haze from the bronze braziers placed between the musicians.

Kazuya clashed his teeth together. His skin rippled a shade of purple. Lee grabbed his arm, and leaned close, murmuring reassurances to him.

Jin’s heart was in his throat when he saw how close Lee was and how volatile Kazuya was. He took a step towardss the musicians, as he did though, he caught sight of Asuka. The papers were no longer in her hand, and instead she held a rod lined with bells. She began a slow fluid dance. Her hakama fanned out about her. Each movement of her hands was punctuated with a short, sharp shake of the rod. The bells rang shrill through the layers of the music. That, in particular, seemed to make Kazuya twitch and snarl.

Jin saw everything in a kind of strange slow motion. The incense rose in streams straight up in the hall, catching in the sunlight and turning silvery there. The musicians in their parallel rows sat perfectly still, save the wave of their fingers and the puff of their cheeks as they drew ethereal sound from their instruments. Asuka danced like she was doing a slow kata, feet sliding along the floor, her arms making small circles, ornamented by the tinkle of bells. Kazuya’s shoulders hunched. His arms crossed over his chest like he was embracing something tight. Then he flung them apart. Lee was sent sprawling onto his back. Jin saw the shirt on Kazuya’s back tear open and the material disintegrated before the razor-sharp scales that crusted over his skin. Bat-like wings burst out of his back and hung enormous and terrible, like malevolent, ragged standards over the lines of musicians. The wings beat, and helped lift Kazuya to his feet. The musicians kept playing, their blindfolds keeping then constant and stalwart before the devilish figure evolving before them.

Kazuya let out an earsplitting cry of rage. Lee pulled himself away from the devil. Jin wasn’t sure what that was on Lee’s face – fear maybe, or perhaps pity. Kazuya turned on the spot. His tail swished in the air. The lethal spike on the end of his tail lowered until it was poised an inch away from the eyes of one of the blindfolded musicians. Jin saw Asuka falter in her dance as she looked on.

Jin nodded encouragement to her. He swallowed and strode towards Kazuya. He stood behind the musician he threatened. Confronting Kazuya felt different. Jin had never felt like this before. Of course, facing his father had never been an easy thing, nor something he did lightly, but this was the first time he felt… like a small animal, staring into the eyes of a predator. Kazuya turned slightly to face him. Every eye on his wings and body looked down at him. Jin knew fear.

He felt it as strong as Heihachi’s gun lowering to his brow, and Ogre’s terrible claws that batted him aside like he was a doll.

Kazuya’s head tilted to one side. Jin’s eyes were drawn to the bone white horns framing his head. The tail flicked again and this time rose swaying back and forth like a hypnotic snake. It came to hover before Jin’s nose. Jin looked at it, frozen where he stood. Blood was pounding in his ears. His lower lip quivered and he realised his fingers were trembling. He lifted his eyes to Kazuya’s but he couldn’t recognise his father there. Every eye was a glazed, pupilless, glowing red. Jin’s throat went dry and his world slowed down. It was all he could do to follow the point of that tail as it swayed back and forth before his eyes. It touched his nose, then dragged slow over his lips. Jin tasted a prick of blood where the serrated edge scratched lightly. Then then that point had nudged up his chin and settled itself against his throat. It broke the skin easily, like a knife just testing the crust of a newly, baked loaf, but was still controlled in the way it pressed to his neck. Jin wondered if that was care or just a game.

“Kazuya!” Lee shouted. The devil turned abruptly, though its tail remained in situ. Jin held his breath to stop his throat from pushing any deeper into that edge. “If you want to start trouble, start it with me!”

The devil’s tail lifted from its attention on Jin. Air poured into Jin’s lungs as he let himself breathe again. He dabbed his shirt sleeve to his neck and it soaked red immediately.

The devil beat its wings, causing the robes of the musicians to flutter madly and the incense to bend and twist. It flew into the air, then let out a cry, as though it had tangled in an invisible net. Asuka was shaking her bells more fiercely. The devil clawed at nothing, thrashing in mid-air. Asuka had a determined look in her eye. Lee took as step back, looking up at his brother writhing above them. Jin couldn’t place the look on his face at all now.

The devil let out another howl, and a burst of red light shot out of its forehead. One of the lighting fixtures exploded in a crash of glass and fell smoking to the floor. The musicians flinched, and some hesitated. Asuka rang her bells and kept her step all the more vigilantly. The others stuttered but then began to follow her lead. The devil sunk back to the floor, wings folding shut like closing theatre curtains. Its back was bent with a kind of grief. Jin found himself tugged toward sympathy again, despite the tremble still in his breath and the sting around the beading blood at his neck.

The music picked up a fervent pace and Asuka’s dance now seemed to conduct it. Her bells shook out a rhythm that made the devil’s shoulders twitch with a puppet’s rhythm. Just when it looked like the devil was entirely subdued to the sound, it roared again and flung open its arms and wings. Lee was the first person it saw, still in stance and ready from his challenge earlier. The devil’s clawed feet delved into the wood floor, then it propelled itself, corkscrewing towards him. It picked Lee up clean off his feet, barrelled up into the air with a masterful twist of its wings. Then it flung Lee down with all its bodyweight still behind the throw. There was a sickening crunch as Lee hit the floor. Jin saw a splutter of red blurt from Lee’s mouth. The devil was on his chest, hulked over him like an enormous carrion. The wooden floor was and warped and shattered around them. Splinters of wood stuck up like a diving wreck at sea.

Jin ran over, his throat throbbing, eyes wide, heart hammering. The devil’s wings parted. Lee was crumpled on the floor, but that devil held Lee’s head in a clawed hand, almost tenderly. Jin stopped a small way off, panting. He looked at the beast.

Its hundred eyes blinked and it peered curiously down at Lee. It reached out a claw towards Lee’s face. Jin stepped forward. The devil snapped its head towards him and hissed. Jin stopped. The devil’s claw brushed a silver hair from Lee’s face.

The sound of a thick dissonant sho chord cleaved the air. The devil screeched and dropped Lee to the ground. It lifted again into the air with a leathery thrash of its wings. Jin raced to Lee’s side. He slid onto his knees and collected Lee to him. Lee’s eyes were closed, but his breathing was steady. There was blood down his chin and staining his immaculate suit. His eyes opened, a flickering warm brown. He wiped a smear of blood from his lips. Jin’s terror must have been readable on his face, because Lee gave him a small smile.

“Don’t worry about me. Help your father. You were right. He can be helped. He’s still my brother somewhere in there.”

“Uncle…” The word came out as a sob. Tears rolled down Jin’s cheeks and collected on the line of his jaw. “I-I… it’s my fault again, I thought-”

“Hush hush,” Lee said in that same voice that had comforted Jin when he awoke in Violet Systems all those weeks ago. “No time for tears. You were right, Jin. And it’s not very often I say that, is it.” Lee gave him a charming smile, and Jin still marvelled at how he did that when he was in pain. “It looks worse than it is,” he reassured, “Kazuya shielded me from most of the impact. Look at his claws if you don’t believe me.” Lee grimaced after he said that though, and touched his chest. Jin laid him carefully back on the ground. He looked over his shoulder, the devil had landed again and was hunched bat-like between the musicians. “Go,” Lee said softly.

Jin swallowed and approached the devil. Its arms were clamped over its head, trying to block out the music.

“Jin! Quit your lollygaggin’!” Jin blinked. Asuka’s was standing next to the devil. Her serene garb was at odds with the fierce expression on her face. “Get yourself over here!”

“Me?” Jin stood stupidly, unsure what to the do.

“Yes you, you super idiot. Get your Kazama ass over here.”

“I’m not like that. I’m not like my mother. There’s nothing I can do that will help,” he explained, though Asuka’s insistence had already set a path for his feet that even his fear of that devil couldn’t shake.

“Now, give me your hands.” Asuka took his hand in hers. Her rod of bells had been discarded. They approached the devil now together. Its breathing was heavy. Its enormous bulk huffing out air with closed wings folded tight about it. “Don’t be afraid,” she told Jin. Jin was much too afraid to rebuke her for the comment.

He was taken back in his thoughts to a time he and his mother had approached a bear. Its foot had been caught in a trap. _Its pain makes it more dangerous,_ his mother had said _. Pain makes all creatures more dangerous. It will take many steps before we can be trusted enough to help relieve its pain. We will be in grave peril, and will receive no word of thanks at the end of it all, but we must do so anyway, Jin. It is our humanity that compels us. The moment we run out of compassion is the moment we annihilate ourselves._

“Gently,” Asuka said. She reached out a hand and touched the devil’s wing. Its cocoon shuddered and retracted from the touch. Jin’s breath came in time to his heartbeat as he mimicked Asuka. The wings parted for them. Within, there were shadows and a concave wall of eyes. Jin had seen this darkness and those glowing eyes in his nightmares. He was rooted to the spot. The three burning eyes in the devil’s face stared down at him. Asuka stepped forward with a boldness that Jin couldn’t fathom. She reached up to the devil with a childlike innocence, and cupped its cheek. The devil twitched. Its skin dulled to a greyer shade and its eyes’ lidded over. Asuka nodded her head to Jin.

Jin took an uncertain step forward. The lidded eyes looked at him like half-shuttered lanterns on a midnight street. The beast’s wings came to a close behind them, enfolding them in darkness. Jin knew each and every one of those glowing eyes could open into a crossbeam of lasers that would dice them into chunks of burnt meat. He reached up a hand and touched the devil’s other cheek. It looked down at them and for a moment Jin was reminded of old, stone, demon statues that guard temples with their silent faces, more forces of nature than wilfully malicious. The glow in the devil’s eyes receded until red pupils were visible, and, like fine detail being scraped free of moss, the angles in that face came to resemble Kazuya a little more. Its eyes looked on Jin with something softer. Its brows creased and its mouth opened. Its lips were cracked and parched and worked into different shapes for some time, before managing:

“J… Jin.”

Jin gave a weak smile. The devil’s tail curled up from under a wing and arose snake-like in their cocoon. Jin’s smile faded. The tail’s razor point lifted to his face height again. Jin’s breath came faster. The point flicked Jin’s fringe out of his eyes. With his other hand, Jin very gently pushed the tail away. There was a pause. Then the devil stretched out a hand and enclosed Jin’s with its own. Its claws were chipped, like they’d cracked under blunt force. Jin looked at those claws, then back up into the devil’s face.

“You saved Uncle Lee. You took the force of the fall for him.” Jin stepped forward. He heard Asuka breathe in with warning, but he ignored it. He reached up and put his arms around the devil. The hard chitinous armour was rough against his skin, with sharp, toothed scales. Jin could feel the large eye in the devil’s chest press close, near to his heart. “Father.”

The scales shifted in his embrace. They smoothed and slid back into skin. The light came in as those wings retracted, and with it the music became more audible and the incense more vibrant. Jin could feel the minute changes as the creature in his arms reverted. He closed his eyes tight.

This time when arms came around him they were free of claw and bone and scale. They drew him close. A face pressed into Jin’s hair and he felt the warm breath of a sigh flutter against him. Then a voice spoke, and it was all Kazuya’s:

“My son.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All you patient people waiting for your soft Kaz and Jin moments, here you go. I have to apologise to Lee Chaolan for beating him up in every one of my Tekken stories. This time at least he stepped up to it and took it for Jin.  
> The music is similar to when this ritual was done in Zen Gardens, but if you want a sample, here is a good one for the [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O0CnxgqA7U)


	20. Harae

They were walking in one of Tokyo’s central parks. Kazuya was in a white shirt that billowed in the chill wind. Jin hadn’t worn enough warm clothes, so was now wearing Kazuya’s long leather coat.

The trees were all bare and dusted with snowflakes. Thick snow crunched under foot and a blanket of quiet hung over the city.

“Do you still feel it?” he asked his father.

Kazuya got out a cigarette but paused with his lighter before it got to his mouth. Jin followed his gaze. The sun was rising. It came red through the tall towers, spilling itself onto a pure white canvass. The wavering lines of skyscrapers were lit up with wavy borders of gold. All the city lights became nothing under that singular brilliance. Jin watched Kazuya as violet shadows shrunk back in his face, smoothing his usually angular features. Kazuya put his cigarette back in his pocket.

“Yes. It whispers to me.” Kazuya frowned, but to Jin his face was radiant and all bathed in the light of the sunrise. “Every day it gets a little easier to resist, but I would still like to leave this city for a while. Take some time away from places that push me to call on it.”

“I’ll come with you,” Jin said quickly.

Kazuya looked at him with a raised eyebrow. Jin’s cheeks coloured, but he didn’t retract his words. He looked up at Kazuya hopefully.

“As you wish.”

Jin broke into a smile. Kazuya hesitated, then a small smile of his own mirrored it. He turned away.

“What is it?” Jin asked. Reading Kazuya had become so much easier of late.

“Hm. Nothing.” Kazuya shrugged. He relented under Jin’s inspection. “You remind me of her.”

Jin felt colder. He drew the coat tighter about him and stared hard at the ground. The winter wind nipped at his knuckles and chilled his cheekbones. He nearly jumped in surprise when an arm wrapped around his shoulders and drew him close.

“You have stories to tell me of her that I missed out on.” Kazuya’s voice rumbled through his chest. Jin stayed quiet. For the first time, the sorrow at the mention of his mother didn’t feel piercing. Instead of cutting him up, it felt like an old aching wound, and one not just borne by him. Jin pressed closer into the hug, he let out a long, low sigh. Being close to Kazuya was different to being close to his mother. When his mother had held him, everything felt at peace, like she was soothing strife from the world itself and melting dissonance into stillness. With Kazuya, it was like being surrounded by an impenetrable fortress – like he was the shield that would keep out the world – like he was ready to weather any violence for you and you would be safe just here in this place behind his arms. Jin held on to his father. A shudder came from deep within him. He’d pent so much of the last five years wishing he had fortifications like these to hide within. Kazuya’s arms tightened around him in response. Jin could feel unspoken things in that embrace: things he knew Kazuya would never say out loud. But that was alright. Jin could feel them in that strong embrace. Kazuya’s affection had a kind of possessive quality to it and a fierceness, like so many other aspects of his life. Just then though, they were a kind of promise. Kazuya would give him this safety, if Jin would allow it. They could face the world together, if that was what Jin wanted.

A moment passed, then Kazuya ruffled his hair. “Come. If we keep your uncle waiting, he might think I’ve murdered you.”

Kazuya drew away and began striding through the snow. Jin watched him. With his white shirt and charcoal trousers, he cut a monochrome figure in landscape of only black and white. He fitted with a plainer sort of serenity. Just a man in a Tokyo park. A human without the wings of that terrible being lurking heavy with hollow spirit behind him. Kazuya turned, waiting for him to catch up. Jin felt his heart leap. He hurried to follow his father.

They were eating breakfast all together in an open-air restaurant at the foot of a mountain. The traditional inn had a low pagoda roof all strung with icicles. Outdoor heaters were pumping out glowing rosy warmth. Stepped up the slope on one side were natural hot springs. Steam shimmered up from the dark pools, melting back the snow from nearby rocks. The little restaurant was a quiet affair, just under an hour’s drive from the city. Asuka had bags under her eyes and was yawning unashamedly at the early hour. She and Lee were seated on one side of the table under a heater, sharing a blanket. Kazuya and Jin sat opposite them, both frowning down at their menus.

“You said we were going out for a treat! A break! This is the earliest I’ve got up all year!” Asuka said, scowling at Lee.

“It was my suggestion that we go out for breakfast,” Kazuya put in.

The complaints died on Asuka’s lips as her eyes turned to Kazuya. She dropped her gaze and grumbled into her menu. Devil or not, Kazuya still seemed to have that effect on people. He gave a half smirk. Jin couldn’t stop watching the way Kazuya laughed more easily, spoke more often, and the way the air felt easier to breathe around him. He wasn’t sure if those were the changes in him or his father but they filled him nonetheless with bursts of joy for small things in life.

“What the-!?” Asuka sat up straight. Jin’s eyes snapped up. “Who let these fucking cute monkeys in!?” Asuka leapt up from her seat, drowsiness forgotten. She bounded over to the steaming pools, terraced up the black rock on the far side of the restaurant. A troupe of snow monkeys had sunk themselves into the hot water further up the slope, and their strange faces all bordered in fluff and flecked with snow looked down at them curiously. Asuka, in her excitement, had dropped the blanket she and Lee had had about their shoulders, and she was now standing with hands planted on her hips as she peered up at the submerged monkeys. “Look at these adorable bastards!”

Lee shook his head, though whether at Asuka or the monkeys, it was hard to tell. He reached to pick up the blanket that had fallen to the floor. Before his fingers could touch it though, he hissed sharply and clutched his chest. Kazuya was on his feet in an instant.

“Don’t move too much,” Kazuya murmured. He placed a hand on Lee’s lower back and helped him sit back upright. “If the pain is too much-”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Kazuya knelt. He picked up the blanket and dusted it free of snow. Then he folded it. He offered it with two hands, raised to Lee like a gift. As he did, he lowered his head and looked down at the floor.

There was a pause. Jin realised he was watching the exchange with bated breath.

Lee received the blanket, taking it and setting it to one side. Kazuya kept his eyes averted and palms outstretched. Lee reached out a hand and cupped it to Kazuya’s cheek. He raised his face until their eyes met. A silence held between them, a mirror of the still snow spread all around. A moment later, Kazuya’s shoulders heaved in an enormous silent sigh. His hands dropped, though he remained on one knee.

“One last time,” Lee said to him.

Kazuya’s heavy brow furrowed in determination.

“I won’t waste it,” Kazuya said earnestly.

Lee’s thumb brushed lightly over his brother’s cheek. He smiled. It wasn’t a dazzling, eccentric smile, but a small, tired one. Jin thought it was the most real he’d ever seen his uncle.

“Huh? Mr Mishima, watcha doin’ in the snow?” Asuka came back over to the table.

Kazuya stood and Lee’s hand slowly dropped.

“Be careful, Miss Kazama. You dropped your blanket in your fit of primate ecstasy.” Kazuya gave a wry grin as he spoke. He came and sat back down next to Jin. Jin looked quickly at his menu, embarrassed at having witnessed such a personal moment.

“These monkeys-… their little faces! They’ve got these red faces and their fluff is so soft and they’re just up their chillin’!”

“You’ve got a red face,” Jin threw out idly. She did too. Especially her nose, which was pink with the cold.

Asuka stamped her foot. Lee and Kazuya hid their amusement.

“A table full of adults here, that’s for sure!” She scowled and grabbed the blanket, shaking it out and wrapping it around herself before sitting down. “Well, _I_ think they’re cute monkeys,” she muttered, “and I never seen no swimming monkeys before.”

“Have you ever seen _any_ monkey before?” Kazuya asked, just a hint haughtily.

“’Cause I grew up dirt poor in a city, that what you’re insinuating, Mr Mishima?” She set him with piercing eyes.

“Yes.” He returned the gaze with a level, measured look.

“I seen plenty o’ monkeys. Sittin’ at a table of ‘em right now.”

Kazuya’s expression went black. Jin looked up anxiously. Lee snorted with laughter. Kazuya’s expression relented before his brother’s mirth. Kazuya muttered something that sounded a lot like ‘no manners in Osaka’, before a waiter came over and orders were placed.

They were brought steaming soups, thick with noodles and eggs still sizzling, and piping hot steamed dumplings and sushi sliced into thin fans and spread in a wheel about platters decorated with vegetables cut into flower shapes. They drank murky green tea under the cherry red warmth of the heater and talked about nothings: the flavour of the food, the chill mountain air, the antics of the monkeys in the pools.

Only after a while did Asuka break conversation open.

“Do you feel any different, Jin?”

Jin had noodles halfway to his mouth. They all slipped back into his bowl and the hot soup stung his hand as it splattered on him.

“I… yes, of course.”

“So, it really is gone? It’s just I was sceptical when you said that you weren’t doing the ritual. I thought maybe you’d changed your mind.”

Jin kept his eyes on his bowl.

“… Father took it away.”

“Huh.” Asuka had demolished most of her soup shortly after it had arrived, much to Lee’s distaste as he sat next to her, watching her chopsticks (and much of the soup) flying. “I still think it woulda been good for you to do it. Therapeutic an’ that. Confronting your demons.”  
  


  
Jin felt colder. The wind was chiller, the air more bitten. It wasn’t the first time since the ritual that he felt like he’d taken a shortcut – a forbidden, easier road. The way Kazuya had described the ritual, it had sounded like a kind of cleansing by fire. Jin couldn’t get away from the idea that maybe he deserved to see all the things that Kazuya had hidden him from. If it really was that terrible, perhaps it would serve as a kind of penance to be made to live with all that.

“Miss Kazama.” Kazuya leered from over his bowl. “Your help was very much appreciated, but you really have no idea what you’re talking about.” His voice was clipped and sharp, and so was the keen, piercing gaze he fixed Asuka with. “Jin has done enough. He has guilt enough for a lifetime and if someone with a warped idea of justice intends to make him suffer further, they will have to go through me first.”

Jin’s cheeks reddened. He looked at Kazuya and saw Lee doing the same.

“Uh… Mr Mishima, I didn’t mean it like that-” Asuka said, “I only meant-”

“The matter is done. He is free. Nothing more is relevant.” Kazuya returned to his food.

Asuka shifted in her seat. Jin could see Lee trying to give her one of his warning looks to let things go, but Asuka wasn’t as well versed in what all Lee’s small gestures meant.

“What about you, Mr Mishima? Your devil is still there, right?”

Jin and Lee regarded Kazuya with matching anxious expressions.

“It’s still there,” Kazuya said casually. They all waited as he took a bite of a dumpling. He dipped it in his soup, then bit into it and chewed. He looked round at the faces all turned to him and raised his eyebrows. “The connection between us has been severed. So long as I do not forge it anew, devil will depart me as no more than a shadow – a parasite without a host.”

Another silence followed. The only sound was Kazuya dipping more dumpling in his soup. Asuka asked the question they were all wondering.

“And… do you intend to renew your connection with that thing, or will you banish it?”

Kazuya gave her a shark-like smirk. He continued eating and said nothing. Jin saw Lee’s eyes hood over, whilst Asuka become apprehensive. Jin looked at his food and the chopsticks in his hand. A kind of certainty spread its wings in his chest. He set his chopsticks down on top of his bowl.

“Kazuya chose to do that ritual. Had he chosen not to, no one here and no one anywhere could have stopped him. You cannot know what he will do, and it’s true, if he wished to, he could continue to harbour his devil in secret, and keep everyone none the wiser. But there is nothing he can do that won’t be met with suspicion. So instead of believing the worst of him, why not choose to believe he might do better? There are plenty of times when I thought I might as well do worse, since everyone believed I was already doing even more terrible things. If I hadn’t had people like Hwoarang and Xiaoyu still believing the best of me, maybe I would have just sunk to the levels I was already accused of. If you doubt that someone is ever capable of changing, you’re the weight dragging them down instead of the hand helping them up. So… so have a little faith.”

Jin began shovelling noodles into his mouth quickly after that. He didn’t dare look up. No one spoke at the table. Another eddy of winter wind shuffled through the fallen snow and made it skitter at their ankles. The only sound was the clink of Jin’s chopsticks against his bowl.

“The mochi is good here,” Kazuya said abruptly. “I’ll have a selection brought out. Hurry up and finish your meal, Jin. You’re so slow even Chaolan’s finished, and he likes to look as beautiful as possible whilst eating every mouthful.” Kazuya got up and went inside the restaurant.

The table was still silent.

“I’m gonna look at those cute monkeys again,” Asuka said, with an awkward laugh. She put her blanket aside more carefully this time and wandered back over to the rock pools.

“I didn’t mean to kill the mood,” Jin said, finally looking up at Lee. To his surprise, Lee’s eyes were soft and affectionate. Jin warmed at the sight of them.

“You’re doing just fine,” his uncle told him. “More than fine. I’m proud of you, Jin. Proud of what you’ve accomplished in the last few days, and of the man you’ve shown yourself capable of being.” Lee stretched his hand out over the table. Jin hesitantly placed his in it. “You’ve done remarkable things, hoped impossible things…” Lee squeezed his hand gently. “You’ve given me back my brother. I-… I had lost hope of ever finding him again. But you persisted where I had all but given up. Thank-you.”

Jin swallowed. He brushed roughly at the start of tears with his other hand. He gave a smile. He thought back to waking up in his uncle’s medical wing, with the recent scenes of destruction about him, and the haunted caged feeling in his chest. Never could he have dreamed that one choice to flee out of a bedroom window at Violet Systems could have brought him here – to this snow-touched place, free of the weight of demons on his shoulders. Into his recollections came a vision of sandy hair and furious eyes and a doll-like body clutched close.

“Did… did you fix Alisa?” Jin asked.

“I haven’t had too much time over the last few weeks, but I’ve made good progress. She’ll be back on her feet soon enough.”

“Lars….” Jin had a feeling that despite the warmth around this small table for him, Lars was going to be at the front of a long line of people who wouldn’t be so quick to forgive.

“Don’t you worry about Lars,” Lee reassured him.

“He isn’t going to stop trying to make me pay for all I’ve done, is he…” It wasn’t really a question. Lee gave a sigh. He moved stray silver hair out of his face.

“There are many who are going to want to see you atone for your crimes, Jin. You have done terrible things, ordered terrible things. You can’t expect them to let all that pain go.”

The new freedom in Jin’s hands felt like it was decaying. Without his devil and without his grandfather’s corporation he was going to be a lot more vulnerable. He wasn’t sure what the sentence was for starting wars, but he had a feeling it would be a long one, and after a very public trial. Lee squeezed his hand again, bringing him out of his reverie.

“Now, personally, under international pressure, Lars’s insistence, and my own moral conscience, I feel I should hand you over to the relevant authorities-” Jin flinched like he’d been slapped. He looked up at his uncle, aghast, with real fear in his eyes. “But-…” Lee continued in a casual voice, still holding Jin’s hand tenderly, “if, say, you were being harboured by the world’s most powerful corporation, with a CEO everyone had just seen turn into the devil incarnate on their televisions... it is possible to surmise that international retributive justice might keep its hands well out of the jaws of that wolf.” Lee’s face was serious but there was a twinkle of something cunning in his eyes. “Didn’t you hear Kazuya earlier? He said anyone wanting to get to you was going to be going through him first.” Jin swallowed. Lee’s voice became kinder. “When it comes to right and wrong, Kazuya has always been on rocky ground. But I can tell you now, there’s no person I’d rather have my back than him. When he puts his mind to something, there isn’t a force in the world that can sway him or stop him.”

Jin was still troubled.

“But… it would be the right thing to do, wouldn’t it? Handing myself in?”

“Good luck trying to convince Mishima Kazuya of that.” Lee withdrew his hand and reached for his tea. “Now, let’s not have any more of this gloom at the table. You have the chance at something new, Jin. Don’t stew over the past. If it catches up to you, it catches up to you. In the meantime, all you can do is try to be a better person. And perhaps if the day comes when you’re called to account, the good you’ve done will also be recalled in your favour.” Lee’s bright smile was once more tipped with that edge of melancholy that always simmered under his facades though. “We all of us have done terrible things. I’ve always been of the opinion that caging a man up with his guilt behind bars will not make the world a better place. It can hardly make up for the harm he’s done, and will he come out the other end a better man?”

“Maybe it would help with the guilt,” Jin murmured.

Should it, though?” Lee’s eyes became so piercing, Jin could barely meet them. “Should sitting in a cell for thirty years be enough to rid your conscience of the deaths you caused? Will it appease the hearts of those who suffered? When Kazuya killed our father, it didn’t undo the years we suffered under his hands. It didn’t make me feel better. In fact, I…” Lee hesitated, a strange misty expression came over him. “Never mind about that. All I can say is that if I’d had the choice to make him suffer for what he did or to have the chance at a loving father, I always would have chosen the latter. Fighting for a misguided sense of justice nearly killed Kazuya, and he lost so much of himself along the way. I don’t know, Jin. I don’t know about these things. But I don’t want my nephew locked up. Maybe that’s selfish, but I’ve always been selfish. So, for my sake, for the sake of your father who needs you – go and live, and don’t look back.”

Jin was quiet. He watched Asuka feeding a monkey with a piece of dumpling she’d saved, wrapped up secretly in her sleeve. The monkey’s little red hands reached out and grabbed the crumb. A very light snow was starting to drift in the air. It turned to patches on her shoulders and tangled in her hair and the monkey’s downy grey fur.

“Father wants to go to Yakushima,” Jin said, after a while.

“Good. Take him there.”

“I haven’t been back since…”

“I know.” Lee gave him a small smile. “It will be different this time. It’ll be different with him beside you. You both need to go back, I think.”

“But what if-”

“Jin.” Lee hushed him with just a word. “No more what ifs. There will be many of those to come, but you will handle them well. I have faith in you. It isn’t the time for worries. Look forward and look up. Now, why don’t you go and see the monkeys with Asuka. Off you go.”

Jin gave a heavy sigh. He did as he was bidden though. He wondered if Lee wanted some time alone, or maybe a moment with his brother. When he got to Asuka’s side, the monkey she’d been feeding skittered off to the shadows. Jin’s heart fell. He gave another sigh. When he lifted his gaze, he saw a line of eyes and red faces peering down at him from out of the steamy haze, like figurines at a temple shrine. The faces turned, shimmering in the heat. The fluff about their faces all stood up on end, some crowded with caked snow. One monkey leapt up onto a wet, shiny, black rock. It skipped down the cliff with easy, practised motions, then paused a way off. It hopped up closer and stopped when it was in front of Jin. It blinked slowly at him and tilted its head. Suddenly, more monkeys were clambering down from the high pools. Their eyes were bright and inquisitive, and they peered up at him with their strange red faces. Jin watched them wordlessly. He stretched out a hand. A small red hand grabbed one of his fingers. He couldn’t remember the last time an animal had come this close to him. Probably back on Yakushima, before everything.

“Huh, they sure like you a lot,” Asuka said, a touch jealous. “I even gave them dumpling. What did you give them?” She soon became enrapt though when Jin was able to run his hand through the soft fur and the monkeys clustered all about him. She gave him a big smile, as though those creatures had done what no one else could, and convinced her he was finally rid of his shadow. Jin felt some of his own reassurance returning too. Something was changing. He couldn’t ever have back the things he lost, but the upheaval in the world around him was rebalancing, and his place in it did not seem so wrong and hopeless as it had before.

He looked back at the table. Kazuya was returning, bringing the tray of sweets. He paused to offer one to Lee before he set the tray down. Lee had adoration in his face as he looked up at his brother. He seemed younger to Jin, and some of that cloak of mystery and distance he always wore, fell away as Jin watched him. He chatted eagerly with Kazuya about things just out of earshot. He smiled at something Kazuya said in reply, and laughed a little apprehensively and without his usual mask of confidence. The brothers exchanged easy, light conversation and the stiffness that Lee’s injury caused him slipped out of his posture.

“You really think Kazuya can let that demon go?” Asuka asked him. She had turned and was watching too.

Jin stood a little taller.

“He had to turn to that devil because he had no one else. This time, I will be there beside him.”

There was no time to say anything else after that. Kazuya waved them over to join for dessert. There was hot chocolate and coffee that would go cold if they lingered too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and for all your beautiful comments and support! I'm so glad that lots of you have enjoyed this story. If you haven't already read them, you may be interested in my other Tekken stories. Chasing Demons forms the last story in a kind of trilogy that I've done. They can be read as standalone, but they also build on one another, so if you are interested in reading them, the order is 1. Fortified by Hate, 2. Zen Gardens of the Heart, 3. Chasing Demons. 
> 
> Special thanks to Thalie and Sola Ircadia who's depictions of Lee inspired me to write this one.
> 
> Harae or harai (祓 or 祓い) is the general term for rituals of purification in Shinto. Harae is often described as purification, but it is also known as an exorcism to be done before worship.


End file.
